


My Demigod Memoirs (A Very Original Title)

by DarkAngelofFire



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Experiment, Light Angst, Original Character(s), first time back into fanfiction for a while, i dunno
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 45,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23372527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkAngelofFire/pseuds/DarkAngelofFire
Summary: We follow a young demigod who struggles to find out his role in the world of Greek mythology and in his own life. Trying this out again.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I'm DarkAngelofFire. I'm a hack writer who can't motivate himself to write his own original ideas, so I'm delving back into fanfiction. This is not an indictment of fanfiction authors, far from it, it's a criticism of me, myself, and I. I've been rereading my Percy Jackson books and this idea has been with me for a while. Maybe if I can start cultivating fanfiction as a hobby with this I can go back to writing smut and then I can cultivate some discipline to write my own works. If you do happen to leave a comment/review then be honest and constructive, I'm aware of what to filter out. If I have to ask, help me just cultivate my ability to describe settings and keep my characters in character with good motivations and choices (not good in the moral sense, good in the consistent sense). I would put up relationships but I've yet to figure out what I'm even doing with this. Hell I'm new to this site. Anyway, thank you for reading this, I blasted it out over a couple days.

I was told that writing things out would help me cope and get my feelings out there. Actually I was told to do any number of artistic things including, but not limited to, painting, digital art, pottery, boat making, basket weaving, weaving in general, and even game design. Writing was just the thing I took to since I can write at my leisure in my cabin on pen and paper.

I’ve not the slightest idea how I’m supposed to design a game without a computer. One of the Hephaestus kids said it helped to code things out, get mad at it, and then figure it out but that’s not my bag and that’s besides the point. I just took to writing and, no, it was not just because Percy Jackson suggested it. He explained in his own way that writing helped to make things more real for him when Annabeth wasn’t there to remind him, and I sympathised with that notion. After everything that I’ve been through it all seems like a dream to me as well.

Sure I’m surrounded by friends at Camp Half-Blood who all are the children of the Greek gods that still hang around America like someone who left their Risk board open and keeps moving their army around the map every once in a while. Maybe that’s a bad analogy, I’m not good at those. In addition to that I’ve fought monsters and traveled to the Greek Underworld to stand before its king. I’ve met Death itself, fought monsters, slew those monsters, and yet sometimes it all feels too surreal to actually be true. Is this getting to angsty? I feel it’s getting too angsty and that’s also not my bag (or at least I’ve grown out of it…. mostly). I should get to my point.

My name is Jeremiah Garron and I’m a half-blood child of a Greek god. I’m sure any prospective reader might be thinking, “Well gee I’d like to know who your godly parent is right now so I could have a different perspective on your story”. Too bad, so sad. I had to deal with not knowing and so do you.  
Maybe I’m projecting.

Anyway my story starts back when I was thirteen. Truthfully it started when I was born but I was passed around from foster home to foster home not really belonging because I had no parents and no one really felt like keeping me. But that’s besides the point.

I was at my umpteenth foster home and doing chores after school when a monster broke down the door. At first I hadn’t recognized it as a monster, I had no frame of reference. I was walking home with my friend Doren. he was taller than me with freckles dusted across his face along with some acne, long brown hair he let grow out, wisps of facial hair, and a noticeable limp. He had told me he got into a bad accident and his legs had been badly broken and impaired his walking somewhat. We were talking about the newest action cartoon on TV at the time, Dr. Savior. I was recanting my favourite parts of the premier episode.

“...and then Dr. Savior pulled out his secret formula at the last second and threw it at the bad guy and he got wasted!” I said, enjoying myself too much. Doren laughed at me, but he enjoyed that kind of show too, even though we both were told we were too old  
for cartoons.

“Yeah, but I liked the part where Dr. Savior was sitting in his laboratory thinking the most,” Doren said.

“What?” I asked. “But that was boring. He was just thinking about people and his experiments.” Doren shrugged.

“It was a nice quiet moment when we got to know him. Did you pay attention to what he was thinking? He was thinking about how much those people meant to him and what he sacrificed to get to this point. I hope there will be an episode about his past because of that.” Doren said with a sigh. We walked for a while more, nearing my foster home. I could feel the algebra homework in my backpack weighing me down as I got closer to having to do it. Then Doren asked me something; “Jeremiah, do you ever have quiet moments?” I stopped and so did he. I looked up at him.

“You mean like in the show?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. I thought about it.

“Maybe? I dunno, I don’t keep track of what I’m thinking or when.” Doren chuckled at my response.

“You should try having one sometime. Just sit and relax with your thoughts, think about what you’re grateful for, what you aspire to be, what brought you here,” he said. I thought about it for a second.

“Maybe. For now all I can think of is this homework,” I said. Doren chuckled and walked me up to my house, limping the way. As we reached the steps of the brown townhouse I lived in this time he stopped and sniffed the air. I turned to face him as he sniffed, his face turning into a frown. Doren looked around several times, as if he were looking for someone… then I saw it, a shadowy figure retreating into the alley across the street and up a bit, between old Mr. Gustafson’s house and the 7-11 beside it. Doren glared concerned at the alleyway for what felt like forever. “Uh……” I said.

“Jeremiah get inside,” Doren said. He turned to me. “If someone knocks, make sure it’s someone you know. I’ll try and show up later tonight.” The look in his eyes showed more urgency than I had ever seen in him.

“Dude, is everything all right?” I asked. Doren looked back to the alley.

“Just worried,” he said. “I heard about some bad people roaming around the neighborhood and I don’t want you being caught up in that.” He turned back to me and smiled. “Last thing I need is my only friend being taken away, right?” I smiled. Doren really knew how to make a person feel wanted.

“Sure thing man… see you tonight then?” I asked. He nodded.

“Probably after supper. Tell your foster folks,” he started limping ahead and waved back to me. I waved back and began climbing the steps up to my foster home, keeping an eye on Doren. He seemed to be moving slower than usual, as if drawing out the moment. I opened the door and moved to close it. As I did I snuck a look through the fancy designed window and saw Doren pick up his pace and I think he began to run. He couldn’t run, he never participated in PE aside from changing but he always did that alone. Weird.

I entered my foster house and was greeted by a high pitched voice yelling

“Who’s there?” I cringed. It was my older foster sister Vicky.

“It’s me,” I said. I was taking off my jacket as she strode into the entrance way. Vicky was tall, her face generously floured with make-up, making her seem ghost white rather than sickly white. She kept complaining about how our small Washington town never got any sunlight so she couldn’t get a tan. Her black hair was straightened and came down to her waist. She was dressed in a fancy looking dress, her phone in her hand. She looked at me and started talking before she flinched.

“Ugh, sorry, but your yellow eyes freak me out,” she said, her nose scrunching up as if I smelled bad instead of looking weird. I looked at the small side table where the key basket was. Above it was a tiny mirror. From there I could look at my eyes. They were yellow, yeah. Not a cool golden yellow or leaning towards green or even a vibrant yellow. They were this pale yellow that a lot of people thought was weird looking and poked fun. I sighed.

“Yes, and?” I asked. Vicky shook herself from her state.

“Mom said she wants you to clean the living room and entry hall before she gets home,” Vicky said. I noticed she was looking at anything but my face. “Then when she does get home she wants help with cooking. After that, I dunno, maybe you can scrub floors or something.” She walked past me to the coat rack.

“Kendra doesn’t treat me like a maid you know,” I said. Vicky stopped and turned back to me.

“Look, kid, mom wants you to do a few chores and I’m saying do some of mine while I’m out,” she said. She put on her coat as a car parked out front and honked its horn.

“Which boyfriend is it tonight?” I asked, going over the line. I knew Vicky was fooling around with two guys and extorting gifts from them. She stopped as she opened the door and turned back to me.

“That’s none of your damn business, just do the chores.” With that she walked out and slammed the door shut. I waited in the entry hall for a few minutes after Vicky’s boyfriend drove off. Then I went to get the vacuum. Thankfully my foster mom Kendra liked to keep things fairly clean so what was mostly asked of me was to vacuum the carpet. Mostly because Kendra had to run off to some other errand. She was nice but inattentive. She seemed to rely on me to look after myself most of the time and for Vicky to fill in the rest. I got to work. The stairs would take the most time so I hauled the vacuum cleaner up to the top and started going down.

After taking way too long on the stairs due to the vacuum falling halfway down and me having to clean that up I was almost done with the stairs when a heavy hand knocked on the front door. I looked over at the clock. I had gotten home at about four in the afternoon, and it was now nearing 4:45. Kendra usually had business to do until about five or so. And she never knocked. I walked up to the door when I remembered Doren’s warning not to open unless I knew who it was. Still, you never know. I walked up to the door and looked through the glass.

“Who is it?” I asked. The voice that came from behind the door responded.

“Hey man, it’s me,” the voice said. It was Doren. But through the glass I saw that what was standing outside my door was much bigger than my scrawny friend. I looked around for the phone. It was all the way in the living room on the other side. Maybe I could stall for time.

“Uh, hey, I’ll be one sec I need to get Kendra,” I said, starting to edge towards the living room.

“Why do you need Kendra? Aren’t I your friend?” the voice of Doren asked. The figure knocked on the door again, harder. It shuddered in its frame. This was not Doren. I booked it across the living room and grabbed the phone as the figure started pulling at the door hard, cracking the frame. I quickly dialed Doren’s number. I probably should have called the police but this is one time my weird way of prioritizing things saved my life. Doren answered on the second ring.

“Hey Jeremiah, whats-”

“Hey man someone’s at my door speaking in your voice, what is it?” I hurriedly said. I heard something fall in the background followed by Doren rushing across his house.

“Don’t move, not an inch, I’m on my way,” and he hung up. Doren wasn’t far away but the figure at my doorstep was pulling the push door as hard as he could. Then he stopped. The noise of him trying to break in ceased and he stepped away. Maybe he had given up and left. Yeah. Sensible thought. Or it would have been in a normal world. I heard heavy footsteps approaching fast and the figure appeared on the other side of the glass, his head down. I realized too late what was happening and he barged through the front door, making a massive hole in the wall in the process. I stood stunned in the living room as the gigantic man turned to face me. The light in the entry hall hit his large hat, which obscured his face to me but I didn’t need to see his face. He was easily over seven feet tall and built like a dump truck. He wore a brown dirty trench coat and a large floppy brimmed fedora from the 50’s. He stalked towards me, his footfalls shaking the house. What was I supposed to do in this situation? What could I do, I was 13! Before I knew it the massive man stood before me, poised to grab me.

“Now let’s see how this demigod tastes,” he said in Doren’s voice. Though it was garbled and kept shifting pitch as if it were a bad speaker. He called me demigod. What did that mean? At the time I had no idea. But I saw that he had spread his legs and I somehow knew to take the chance. As he lunged down I dove between his legs and scrambled to stand up and run away. The gigantic man sounded confused, turning to see me bolt through the hole in the entrance to my foster home. I was out in the streets, the sun setting behind buildings. Doren was nowhere to be seen.

“DOREN!” I shouted. I hoped to hear him shout back but instead I heard a guttural GRAAAAAAAAAGH in response. The giant came running out of the house and after me. I started running before I saw something fly over my head. I heard the giant scream in pain as Doren ran up and stopped me by the shoulders.

“Jeremiah, are you all right?” he asked, looking me up and down.

“I’m fine, but that giant man is after me!” I said. Doren looked past me.

“Jeremiah, do me a favour and look at him. Tell me that’s a regular mortal,” he said. What? Regular mortal? What did that even mean? I turned and saw that the giant man’s hat had fallen off as he held his face. He raised it from his hands and it looked kind of normal still, but blurry.

“I-I don’t know, it looks kind of-”

“Dammit Jeremiah, look through the Mist!” Doren shouted at me. The what? But I looked again as the giant recovered and saw that his face was anything but normal. In the center of his forehead was a single eye, bloodshot from whatever Doren had hit it with.

“Wh-what is that!?” I shouted, stumbling back. Doren held me firm.

“A cyclops,” he said. “By the looks of it, he’s been on your trail for a while.” Dored reached into his pocket and pulled out… a wooden flute? Then I kept looking down and saw he wasn’t wearing shoes. And he didn’t have feet. Instead they were hooves. What was going on? I was not ready at the time to process all this. Neither did the cyclops. It ran at us full steam. Doren pushed me away and dove the opposite direction. He came up playing his wooden flute. The cyclops ran into a tree which started to reach down and grab him in its branches, which grew longer and thicker as Doren played. The cyclops tried to break them but they kept growing. Soon his arms were entangled to the point he could barely move. Doren ran over to me, his hooves clacking on the asphalt. Street lights flickered on.

“Doren, what is all this?” I asked as he knelt beside me. Doren shook his head.

“I’ll tell you once we deal with this guy,” he said. From his other pocket he pulled a sheathed dagger. He handed it to me. With trembling hands I unsheathed it and saw it was a shining bronze dagger, sharp as ever, double edged. It was about a foot long from blade to hilt. “This dagger is celestial bronze,” Doren said as he stood. “It’s deadly to monsters, like him.” As he spoke the cyclops began to break the tree branches. “I’m going to distract him with my nature magic. While I do that, you run up and kill him.” Doren said it as plainly as ever.

“Wait wait,” I said, “where should I stab him?” Doren shrugged.

“Heart, head, anywhere you think is vital.” The cyclops broke the branches and roared at Doren, turning to us. “It’s now or never Jeremiah,” he said as he ran the other way, the cyclops focused on him and yelling about satyr meat. Doren stood by the trees as the cyclops charged but it learned its lesson and yanked the tree Doren was standing beside out of the ground in one move before Doren could do anything with it. He swung but Doren nimbly danced out of the way, playing his wooden flute all the while. I wasn’t sure what song it was but suddenly the tree was encasing itself around the cyclops’s hand. That only made it marginally less dangerous because it still had a weapon to swing, which he did. Doren danced out of the way and back to my ruined foster home, the cyclops chasing him as he did. I, for my part, started moving towards them. The cyclops chased Doren to the hole in the wall, only to have Kendra’s small front garden to suddenly become warlike. Thin plant vines shot out of the ground and encased the legs and torso of the monster as it thrashed and ripped them. Doren kept playing his music, but I could see he was slowing down. He caught my eye and nodded. It was now or never.

I ran at the monster, not thinking about it. I was too far away, however, and the cyclops ripped his new club arm free and swung at Doren. He got him in the side and sent him into the house. With a shout I kept running and meant to go for the heart. However the cyclops had bent down to rip vines away so I improvised and thrust the dagger into the back on his thigh. The monster stood straight and roared in pain, bending back. This was it. I pulled the dagger out and hoped it would work. I stabbed up through the back of the cyclops, where I guessed its heart would be. As soon as I did that he crumbled to dust. Literally, he dissolved into a vaguely cyclops shaped statue before he crumbled into yellow powder at my feet.  
It was only when Doren limped out that I realized I was still screaming. He put a hand on my shoulder and I stopped, realizing he was alive.

“Doren, what was-” he cut me off.

“Jeremiah, I’ll explain later. But right now we need to go.”

“Go where?” I protested. “My house is gone, I’ll be in so much trouble!” Doren shook his head sympathetically.

“Not there. Somewhere safe for you. A camp across the country,” he said. Then we heard sirens in the distance. His mouth was set in a line. Then he spoke again. “Jeremiah I’ll say this now I am your protector. I was sent to confirm your identity and now I have. You’re a demigod and I have to take you to camp. Let’s pack some things quickly and get out of here.” Doren’s stare helped to solidify what had just happened. I killed a monster. I was a… demigod or whatever. Doren was here to help me.

“Okay,” I said. My voice was small. Doren gave me a sympathetic smile and led me upstairs. We packed a pack of clothes and took some canned and wrapped food with us. As we exited I saw Kendra’s car was coming down the street. “Oh man,” I said. Doren took a deep breath.

“We need to leave, Jeremiah. This situation will be dealt with later. Right now not only are you not safe, but neither is anyone else here too. Understand?” Doren looked at me. His eyes were so full of understanding, like he’d said and done this before. I took a breath.

“All right,” I said.  
So we ran into the night, avoiding police and news helicopters. We stuck to the shadows of buildings until we reached the woods and kept running away to Doren’s destination.


	2. A Demigod and a Satyr Walk Across the US (Selective Stories)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I contrived three stories for our main character's trip across the US. They're not very good but I banged them out and I had fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, DarkAngelofFire here. Welcome to chapter 2! I noticed I've had 2 hits on this story which, hey, I thank those 2 people even if what I've provided hasn't been much. I've actually been having fun writing this out so I'll keep on keeping on. Maybe I can actually figure this site out, because it does NOT like indents in HTML so maybe that's a me thing. I'm sure I'll figure it out. Eventually. Maybe.
> 
> I dunno.

As I write this I remember my mixed feelings at the time Doren took me to camp. I was equal parts excited, terrified, confused, thrilled, angry, sad… now that I think about it I was just cycling through emotions like I had spun a wheel in my brain and it activated every one it hit over and over until I was too fried emotionally to handle it. I remember the moment because that was when I finally asked Doren the most important question:

“Is it all true?” I asked the question as we sat by a fire he made. We were a few hours walk from the town and in the woods. Doren had wisely stored some wilderness packs and we had sleeping bags laid out by the fire. I was sitting on mine, head cradled in my hands as Doren played his pipes to make sure they were still working. They were. He played what sounded like Scooby Doo music on it as we sat. He looked at me when I spoke up. Then he sighed.

“Look, this isn’t the best way to get introduced to this stuff. What sucks is that it’s also the most common way it happens,” he said. I looked at him through the fire, his goat legs stretched out before him, enjoying the warmth.

“So you’re a... satyr?” I asked. Doren nodded.

“Yep. Speaking of,” he put a thumb under his hairline and pulled it all off. I was horrified for a second before the idea that it was a wig appeared to me. Underneath his hair was much shorter and two small horns poked out above. “There we go,” he said with relief. “Forgot to take it off before I came to help you out.” I stared at them for what must have been a long time because Doren sheepishly chuckled and said “You know staring isn’t nice.”

“Sorry,” I said. “It’s just that this all seems…”

“Not real?” Doren asked. He smiled. “Hey, you’re not the first one to find out you’re a half-blood. And you won’t be the last.” Doren grabbed a stick and tossed it onto the fire. I watched the fire for a moment before I worked up the courage to ask him.

“What’s a half-blood?” I looked at Doren who seemed to chastise himself in his head.

“Okay I should have gone over that at the start,” he said. “Let me give you the general run down. Normally there’s an orientation video you watch at camp but we’ve got a ways to go so I’ll keep you informed.” He blew a few stray notes through his pipes and, satisfied, he set them down. “So basically the gods of olympus, you know them?” he asked. I nodded. I had gone over them last year in school, though I forget which school it was. “Well they’re real, as are all the myths about them. That includes the heroes, the titans, spirits, nymphs, and monsters. Like that cyclops you fought,” Doren reached into his bag and pulled out a beat up looking muffin from the cafeteria he got that morning. He started eating it, wrapper and all. “Anyway,” he said with a full mouth, “The gods moved from Greece to Rome after the Trojan War, Aeneas and all that,” he waved his hand as if it was trivial. “Then from Rome they moved across the world to where, what did he call it?, the ‘centre of the west’ was. That shifts. Rome, Europe, Britain, and eventually they settled in the good ol’ US of A.

“From there they kept on doing what they’ve done best: having kids with mortals, with a few exceptions, and giving out quests. Their influence has been present in history since forever. World War II? Sons of Zeus and Poseidon against a son of Hades. Great London Fire of 1666? Hephaestus kid with fire powers went a bit nutso,” Doren did that swirly gesture on the side of his head. “Now we have our camp, Camp Half-Blood, where young demigods like you get to train and live in a safe place where monsters can’t get you.” Doren smiled as he ended his mini lecture. “So, that’s the gist so far. Any questions?”

I had way too many so I thought for a second and narrowed my options.

“So I’m a demigod? A child of a god?” I asked finally. Doren nodded.

“Yep. Though we don’t know which god, yet. Could be almost any of them. If you’re lucky when we get to camp you’ll be claimed by your parent and you’ll get assigned to your cabin with your siblings,” he reached into his pack and grabbed a bottle of water, taking a huge swig before continuing. “Sometimes you can tell based on familial features or skills, but that’s unreliable unless you’re a blonde haired, grey-eyed child of Athena. Like you could be a really good archer like one of Apollo’s kids but your parent could be, say, Hermes since you practiced archery a lot.” Doren paused and looked at me over the fire. He looked at me for a solid minute before shrugging. “I don’t know, buddy. Your eyes are unique but that could be anything, no offence.” I rubbed my eyes, tired and confused.

“I need to sleep,” I said. Doren laughed.

“Trust me, it only gets more confusing when you get into the details. I’ll let the camp director tell you more when we get there. For now sleep, I’ll take a short watch and set up some early warning traps,” he said. I took Doren’s advice and slid into my sleeping bag and fell asleep as soon as I lay down.

\---

One of the things I was thankful for, aside from everything Doren had done on my behalf, was that I was blissfully free from dreams. I’m sure any who read this will be aware that demigod will deal with dreams that tell what’s going on elsewhere, relive moments from the past, have a warning, or anything else fun and exciting like that. I expected nightmares about that cyclops that night but perhaps I was simply too tired to really think about it. The dreams came later. However, I do remember waking up that morning to Doren shaking me saying we needed to get a move on. We packed up camp and began heading out. Most of it was simply walking, sleeping on various modes of transportation, and generally making conversation. However I feel like a short paragraph just saying “we went to camp” is boring so I’ll include a few short tales of interest. At least I think they’re interesting.

We travelled along the northern states to New York since Doren wanted to keep a straight line until we hit Wisconsin. I remember as we were traveling through Montana we were walking across some of the flattest land I had ever seen. It must have been the flat part of Montana because hoo boy it was not interesting. What was interesting, however, was the pack of Laistrygonian giants we stumbled across.

Doren stopped me as we walked across a field with waist high crops, keeping on the right path due to some of his nature magic. I looked up and was confused since I couldn’t see anything for the miles we had spread out before us.

“What’s up?” I asked. Doren stood still, sniffing. Then he sucked air into his teeth.

“Oh man we have no cover and they’re waking up,” he hissed. He desperately looked around to find no available cover as crops in the distance stirred. Then Doren finally grabbed me and forced me down to the ground, laying beside me and keeping me still. I looked at him like he was crazy but he put a finger to his lips. Then he slowly mouthed the word Laistrygonians. I looked at him confused as the sound of shifting crops ahead grew louder. He rolled his eyes and mouthed giant cannibals, live north, eat demigods, lie still, no talking. I got the idea and kept still and silent. I had no idea the Greeks even had giant cannibals but the idea they were feet away was terrifying.

Then I saw one stand up.

It had red skin, was at least ten feet tall, fairly skinny, and had tattoos all over for some reason. It leaned back and stretched, yawning and looking around.

“Did you guys hear somethin’?” he asked. He scratched his inked chest, still looking around.

“No, but I think I smell somethin’ good,” said a deeper giant voice. This one also stood up and was carrying more weight than the first. He had a massive belly and less tattoos than the first, but enough. One of them read Gorefist x Food with a heart surrounding it. Kind of weird to project something everyone could see but hey, no one said giants made sense. A third one stood up and he was what I thought of when I heard the word “giant”. He stood several feet over his comrades and glared down at them. His jaw was so square it looked like it was cut from a stencil. He was built like someone had shoved various large animals in a bag and then made that humanoid. Muscles rippled beneath his skin as he moved and stretched. He had one tattoo, it was a giant bonking a stick figure with an old fashioned helmet on the head. I hoped that these things couldn’t smell fear because I was about to leak some fear on the ground. The third giant sniffed the air in a way not dissimilar to a dog. He bared his teeth and licked the top row in anticipation.

“I smell food,” he said, his voice a deep baritone. Suddenly the fear he imposed was reduced by about 40% because he had an absurdly thick Canadian accent. “There’s meals aboot, eh?” he said, looking around. Oh no, this was too funny. I bit my tongue as his comrades sniffed the air, but seemed to be unable to pinpoint us. I looked to Doren who was quietly fiddling with a small handful of acorns and seeds. Every half second he glanced back up at the giants and was mouthing various words. As he did so parts of the crops were shifting as if being blown by wind. Then I felt a cool wind across my face, like a hand. The wind blew from our right and the giants looked in that direction.

“What do you reckon boss?” the skinny giant asked. The boss giant mulled this over.

“Wind’s suddenly picked up, eh boys?” his accent doing him no intimidation favors. But he was still massive and wanted to eat me so that kept me from laughing. Mostly. Some air escaped my nose as the crops rustled loudly. Then, against all odds, the giants began walking towards us. Doren grabbed my head and slammed my face into the dirt. I couldn’t breathe but I think that was the point. No noise. I remained as still as I could will myself as I felt the rumbling footsteps of the giants coming toward us. Every second was one where I could feel the hand of death reaching out for me, ready to take me. But then something made me retract that. That didn’t feel like something Death would do.

A giant's foot stomped to my immediate right. It was there for an agonizingly long time as my brain shut down. Then it lifted and kept going. I would have kept count but my lungs were slowly beginning to burst. The footsteps were behind us. Doren pulled my head to the side and clamped a hand over my mouth, letting my breathe in through my nose. The sun was absurdly bright as I heard the giants retreating, talking about food. Doren and I lay there for several more minutes until we couldn’t hear them anymore. Then Doren sat up. I followed him slowly as he breathed in wonderful, safe air. His shirt was soaked through with sweat and dew.

“Oh man,” he breathed. “That was too close. I owe you a huge favour.” I stared at him, confused. Then I heard a voice.

You’re quite welcome. I jerked my head around at the voice. It seemed to come on the wind but someone had to be here. Then a form appeared above me and Doren, shaping into a wispy woman with dark hair and a long white gown. She was like one of those shampoo commercials with slow motion. Now when she spoke, it sounded more normal. “You’re lucky I was in the area, Doren,” she said.

“Nah, it was all calculated,” he said. He grinned and looked at me. “Jeremiah, this is Helen. Helen, Jeremiah.” I could do nothing but wave dumbfounded at this air lady. “She’s a cloud nymph who took time out of her schedule to help us, say thank you.”

“Uh thank you cloud lady,” I said. (How socially adept of you, me.) Helen the cloud nymph chuckled at me.

“Quite the specimen he is,” she said. Doren nodded.

“He’ll show who he is soon enough, I know it,” he said, standing. He offered a hand and helped me up. We said our goodbyes to Helen and began making our way across the field towards a town. “We’ll stick to the roads for a bit while we’re here. Should avoid some of the less desirable types like those.”

“Would I be able to kill them?” I asked, the celestial bronze dagger in my jacket pocket. Doren shrugged.

“With some training, sure. But right now you’re a complete greenhorn so I gotta keep you out of unnecessary danger,” he said. Doren gave me a pat on the shoulder. “Tell you what, I’ve got some spare cash, I’ll grab us something good to eat in town to celebrate us not being eaten.” I smiled at that thought.

“Sure thing.”

\---  
Our next stop of interest was Chicago, though it wasn’t some tense situation that put me and Doren on the brink of being killed. No this one was more… creepy. Doren and I were making our way through the city to try and find some supplies but Chicago was loud and cold and windy so it was a miserable time to be there in the fall. That’s not even mentioning that Chicago loved being massive and confusing to navigate. Doren and I got turned around so many times I was convinced we were heading backwards. However Doren was insistent that if he could find a park he could use a tracking spell and figure things out from there. Eventually we found someone who told us about the upcoming Millenium Park and that there’d be trees in that area. The guy told us construction was happening, but done for the day so it should be safe to get in and out. It was when we got to the construction site that things turned weird.

We were navigating the field of backhoes, bulldozers, and cement trucks making our way to the trees when something in the wind whispered to me. It was intelligible and at the time I had no idea what it was exactly, but it made me stop. Doren noticed and turned around.

“Jeremiah, we need to get going man,” he said.

“I heard something,” I said. I looked around, seeing nothing but construction equipment and the high rise of Chicago. “Something like the wind saying something. Are there a bunch of cloud nymphs in Chicago?” I asked. Doren shook his head.

“Nah, mostly harsh wind spirits. Anemoi Thuellai are the storm spirits that run rampant in this city. You won’t see ‘em but you’ll feel them when you get hit by a bad gust of storm wind. To answer your question properly a cloud nymph wouldn’t be talking to you, here of all places. They’re busy enough,” he said. “So maybe you’re just hearing things.” Doren might have been right but I couldn’t shake the feeling something was trying to talk to me. I heard the voice again, speaking. It spoke something in a language I couldn’t understand yet it sounded familiar. I looked toward where the backhoes were and noticed a hole in the ground where I hadn’t seen one before. Doren ran back to me. “Hey, what’s going on man?”

“I for sure heard a voice,” I said. I repeated the words I’d heard and Doren went pale.

“That means ‘come to me, my hero’ roughly, in Ancient Greek,” he said. Once he translated it it clicked in my head properly.

“Hey I understand that now,” I said. Doren nodded but wasn’t too happy.

“You’re a demigod, your brain is hardwired for combat and Ancient Greek. It comes slowly, but that’s not the issue. The issue is something is whispering…” Doren noticed where I was looking and frowned. “That wasn’t there before,” was all he said. His voice was tight and nervous. I started walking towards the hole but Doren roughly grabbed my shoulder to stop me. “Dude, you are not going underground because a voice whispered to you.”

“It’s…” I was going to say it wasn’t about that but it was. “Something’s telling me that hole is connected to me.”

“Yeah, it’s probably an old porta-potty hole,” Doren said. “So if you feel a connection to that, more power to you, but we need to get a move on so that we can get to camp in a reasonable amount of time.” That was a bit rich considering we’d been walking for well over two weeks.

“Look, just a peek, all right?” I asked. “If anything bad happens, then I pull back and we run. Sound good?” Doren grimaced, then frowned, then sighed.

“All right fine, but I’m right beside you and you’re only looking down at it,” he said. “You got thirty seconds.” With that we ran over to the hole and knelt beside it in the mud. It looked big enough for me and Doren to fit into with room to spare. Just from above it seemed to open up into an absurdly large cavern. I carefully leaned over and poked my head through and saw that the cavern was… developed? In a sense. It was all mud but it was carved out into tiers that circled around a center, almost as if it was a plan for an underground building.

“It’s massive down there,” I said. I could hear my voice echo faintly. “Though I don’t know why I felt the need to…” I trailed off as I saw something white and wispy in the distance. It was shaped like a person… but as if they were a faded picture. Its hair was long and flowing as it stood on the top tier of the cavern, closest to the hole. It was still a fair distance down.

“What’s going on man?” Doren asked. “You good?”

“There’s someone down there,” I said. “It looks like one of those clou-” I stopped as I heard that whispering in my head. The voice spoke in Ancient Greek again and I understood it faster now.

'My hero?' It asked. Then the wispy figure started looking up. I only saw its eyes but once they made contact with my own its face began to glow a fierce shade of red. It was blinding and the figure shot up towards me, screaming in Ancient Greek. I pulled back as fast as I could, expecting it to come out of the cavern and attack me. But nothing happened. Instead when I looked back at the mud between us the hole was gone. Doren reached forward and grabbed me by the shoulders.

“Dude? You okay?” he snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Answer me man!” I shook my head and took a deep breath.

“Sorry, sorry,” I said.

“You said you saw something down there, what was it?” he asked. As weird as it was, I felt too terrified to say what it really was. So all I said was

“I thought it was a cloud nymph, but that was a trick of the light. Then I felt like I was slipping so I fell back a bit hard.” I looked at Doren. He was frowning. He wasn’t buying it. He stared into my eyes for way too long before he closed them and sighed.

“All right man, whatever. As long as you’re okay,” He stood and offered me a hand. I gladly took it and he hauled me up. We walked towards the trees, Doren now talking about how we need to get my clothes washed. I agreed, but that event would always stick with me. The wispy figure’s screams remained in my head ever since, causing many a nightmare.

'YOU’RE NOT MY HERO! BRING MY HERO TO ME!' It screamed. Then as it stopped and the hole disappeared, I heard it whisper something else. 'You’re someone else’s hero, one who fails to save them.'

It was only later that I found out what I had encountered was a ghost.

\---

The last story of interest is the only thing that made me at all interesting at camp for a long time. Doren and I had just reached New York City and he was trying to figure out a way to secure a safe ride to camp, but he was out of cash and I was obscenely exhausted. We had rushed through the last few states and only got some transportation once we hit the state because we showed up way to the west of the city and a trucker was nice enough to pity us. But now we were close to our goal and I wanted to finally sleep on a bed. Doren was talking to a taxi driver and I was sitting on the sidewalk by some giant building. Now I could name most of the main landmarks in NYC but at the time I was too tired to care. I looked up at Doren as he approached me. He was wearing pants and his fake feet/shoes combo to travel the city. He looked bummed. 

“Hey, man,” he started but I held up a tired hand and sighed.

“I get it, let’s get moving,” I said. I stood up and winced at how stiff I was. What made this day worse was that we hadn’t slept last night to try and make time. Both of us were all kinds of exhausted and yet we had to make the last stretch on foot. We walked along… some street at the time, I can’t quite recall, but Doren was still looking around for someone we could get a ride with. I had resigned myself to walking more. I’d walked across the continental US at this point, what was NYC to Long Island? Still pretty far for someone as exhausted as I was. I was contemplating asking Doren to stop and eat despite any issues of time when an older guy with a large dog stopped us. 

His dog was a gigantic German Shepherd, like it could beat fighting dogs up. It had black fur that turned a bit blonde around its nose and paws. The guy was six feet easy, also way too well built. It was like he and his dog decided to go twinsies at the gym. His hair was grey, what I could see under his dirty hat. Looking at him closely I could tell he was in about his late fifties, or thereabouts. I looked at his face as hard as I could. After the cyclops I was wary. He had two eyes and nothing I could think about could make me see if that was any different. What he wore though was a triple X-tra large plaid shirt that opened to reveal a stained tank top, and ragged jeans. He looked homeless, but he had an actual dog leash so maybe…

“You kids need help?” he asked in a voice that sounded a bit younger than he looked. He looked down at us with concern.

“Uh…” I said. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to start violating every stranger danger tape I’d seen at school when Doren answered.

“You, uh, don’t happen to know if we can get a free ride at all?” he asked, a sheepish (or goat-ish?) grin on his face. The old guy looked down at us with sympathy.

“Where’re you boys headed?” he asked. Doren put a finger to his chin and thought for a second.

“Just halfway up Long Island,” he answered. It sounded about inexact enough. “We’ve been walking and hitchhiking as an experiment to visit our cousins since we’re home schooled but, as you can see, not the best strategy,” he gave a laugh. The old guy rubbed his chin a moment before snapping his fingers.  
“Tell you kids what, I’ll give you two a ride,” he said. Doren smiled but I still felt a bit too wary. Doren looked at me and got what I was half-thinking.

“As kind as that is, sir, it’d be a bit safer if you knew someone who could help us,” he said. Yes it makes about as much sense as it sounds but anything sounds good when you haven’t slept. The old guy shook his head.

“Nah, alls I know is truckers and they’re all workin’. I got my semi and it’s got room for you two, and I’m on vacation. Call it my good deed for the day, eh?” he said, smiling. Doren and I looked at each other and shrugged. At this point, anything would work.

“You’ve got a deal, mister uh...” Doren said, stretching out his hand. The old guy shook it.

“Daryll, Dare for short,” he said, shaking Doren’s hand. “I’ll take you boys to my truck.” He turned and Doren went to step forward, but he missed a stone in front of him and his fake foot came off. He quickly got it back on, but Daryll’s giant dog sniffed the air and turned around, growling. It jerked Daryll around and tried to run for Doren, but Daryll kept the dog back with the leash. Doren, for his part, jumped back and assumed what I think was supposed to be an imposing kung-fu stance that instead looked like he was flailing his limbs like a fish out of water.

“What's up with your dog, man!?” he yelled. Some passersby stared at us but didn’t say anything. Daryll spent some time pulling his dog back and making it behave. Once it was under control he laughed good-heartedly.

“Sorry about that, kid. Daisy’s a bit jumpy. Maybe you scared her,” he said. Then he smiled, “or maybe you smell good to her.” Doren glared down at Daisy the massive dog.

“Nah, don’t think I smell great,” he said, straightening up. “Let’s just get to that truck of yours.” As he said that, Daisy turned to her master and barked. Daryll just shrugged, turned, and headed off. With no other choice in the matter, we followed.

As we walked I kept one hand on the dagger in my pocket. I hadn’t had to really use it since Doren rescued me, but I wasn’t taking chances. If things went wrong I was gonna use it to get away. Doren, meanwhile, was glaring at Daisy. He kept it up until we reached a dilapidated house with a giant back alley space for a massive semi-truck, sans trailer. It was old, rust eating through the metal around the wheel wells. The paint was scratched and worn but the truck looked like it was well used. Daryll opened up the back end for use and Doren and I climbed onto a matress perpendicular to the driver and passenger seats. Daryll took the wheel after Daisy bounded into the drivers side and settled in the passenger seat, sitting at attention. He closed his door, started the truck up, and we got on the road. While Daryll was busy navigating New York traffic, Doren leaned over and whispered very quietly into my ear.

“That dog knows,” he said. I looked at him, confused. He shook his head and leaned in again. “When it went for me, it said ‘I smell goat’ so it might know something. Might be a monster. Keep a hand on that dagger, I’ll figure out a small plan if things go wrong.” he pulled away and nodded at me. I gripped the handle on the dagger tight. 

We kept driving and eventually, after way too long, made it out of the city and on the way to Long Island. I nodded off, despite my best efforts. I fell into a light, dreamless sleep beside Doren as the rhythm of the truck lulled me. It was almost peaceful until I heard Doren speak up.

“Uh, hey man, you can drop us off here,” he said. I jerked my head up and saw through the windows we were passing through a town. Then we exited and were driving into the woods. We kept going, Daryll eerily silent. Doren started rifling through his pockets and I gripped the dagger, ready to use it. Soon Daryll stopped in the middle of nowhere. He snapped his fingers and Daisy pounced. She was now on Doren, one paw in the center of his chest, pinning him. Her maw was at his throat. Daryll chuckled and turned around, his face changed and I felt like an idiot. He now had one eye on his face.

“Another one,” I said.

“You’d be surprised how being tired affects your ability to see through the mist, demigod,” Daryll said. I looked at Daisy and suddenly she was different. She had become a much larger jet black hound with lava red eyes that glowed. I must have looked surprised as Daryll laughed again. “Startled?” he asked. “Daisy there is a genuine hellhound I raised,” he said. I stared at Doren. He looked back at me with desperation. We had to think of something.  
“You raised a hellhound?” I asked suddenly. “All by yourself?” Daryll nodded in appreciation.

“No one thinks about it, but I met Daisy when I was homeless in the city. I raised her and we managed to carve a path for ourselves. Especially sniffing out demigods and satyrs for good eating,” he grinned and I noticed his teeth were yellow and crooked. The more I looked at him the more I saw the first cyclops I had faced. Anger started to make my slow gears turn and I looked to Doren, who had something in his right hand. We locked eyes and he nodded. Fast as can be, he reached up and whacked Daisy on the head with a short, thick branch he had found before we hit New York. She jerked back in surprise when Doren shoved the branch down her maw. It wouldn’t kill her but getting a branch shoved down your throat would make anyone stop to gag. Daryll the cyclops started but I rushed him. He didn’t have time to react when I thrust the dagger into his eye. He let out a short scream before he crumbled into dust. Daisy reached a paw out and clawed my right arm as Doren scrambled to open the door. He got it open and we both tumbled out into the evening air.

“I know where we are!” he exclaimed. “We’re not too far from camp, but we gotta book it!” He started running, abandoning his fake feet. I ran after him, trying to keep up. I thought we had gotten away when I heard a horrid howl behind us along with heavy footfalls. That gave me another jolt of adrenaline and I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. We kept running for what felt like way, way too long for Daisy to not catch up with us. Then we broke the tree line.

Doren and I had entered into a valley where a variety of buildings were nestled. However, the main things I noticed were the giant blue house and the pine tree on a hill. We kept running towards the hill when I heard Daisy break through after us. She bounded fast, closing the gap with every step. I saw someone at the crest of the hill, a blonde girl.

“HELP!” I screamed. “GET SOMEONE, ANYONE!” The girl turned and ran back towards the buildings. Then I heard music being played. Doren was running and playing his pipes, the music jittery due to his running, but it had the desired effect. Grass began growing around Daisy’s paws, trying to entangle her. But she ripped through the grass and kept after us. I did the stupid thing, then, and threw my dagger at her. Time slowed down as I watched the dagger spin through the air, end over end, as it sailed towards Daisy’s head. It looked like it was going to go in blade first and I got my hopes up.

Sadly, as even my current self can attest, I’m not good at physics. I had failed, in the moment, to factor in that Daisy was also moving, and hit the dagger’s hilt before the blade. It harmlessly bounced off her forehead and flew off into the distance as the hellhound gained on me. Then, sensing it was in range, it leapt. I was just starting up the hill as I saw her sail at me, jaw open to reveal too many sharp fangs ready to tear me to shreds.

Then a spear sailed into her mouth. It went down her throat and the hellhound jerked, turning to the side, and fell on me. It still hurt, since I got hit by what felt like a small card, and something cracked. I heard yelling beneath the body of the hound until it jerked in response to something and it went limp before melting into a puddle of darkness. The weight was removed and I could see who had finished the monster off. 

A girl, different from the small blonde one, stood over me, examining my body for injuries. She grabbed my shoulder and I yelped. Pain flared across my chest which activated something broken there, so more pain spread until my entire torso was on fire. The girl was yelling something and I got a blurry look at her. Her hair was shoulder length and black, pinned up on her left side and let down on the right. Her eyes were a nice shade of baby blue. She looked my age maybe, I couldn’t tell, I was on the verge of unconsciousness. Doren suddenly appeared in my field of view and asked the girl something. She shrugged and said something back. I couldn’t tell, my vision darkened and I blacked out.


	3. In Which I Meet Her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeremiah wakes up and finds himself being introduced to a whole new life at Camp

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 4 hits! This whole mentioning hits thing must come across as contrived or conceited or angry but it's not. It's actually kind of nice to try and build something from the very ground up and try to earn an audience. I'm having fun with this, I must say.

As I write this memoir out now I should warn any prospective reader that the incident of my arrival at Camp Half-Blood was the most interesting thing about me for some time. Thinking back on things, I’m noticing that the early half of my life was nothing special while nowadays I experience much more excitement, for good or ill. But none of the major stuff happened until I was claimed and we’ve yet to get there. So continue on my journey, reader, and enjoy.

The first thing I remember after the ‘Jeremiah Pushes Up Daisy Incident’ (which was named later and not by me) was waking up on a bed with a bandage on my upper right arm, a cast on the forearm, and my mouth feeling like something had come along and sucked it dry of all moisture. I took in my first conscious breath and went into a coughing fit that made me grip the rails of my bed… rails? When I finished coughing I noticed my bed was a hospital bed, or at least the frame was. The mattress was far more comfortable than anything I expected out of a normal hospital bed. The pillows were soft and the blanket wasn’t too warm or cold. On the side table beside me was a glass filled with what looked like apple juice with ice and a straw. I sat there, confused, when I heard a knock. I looked to the doorway and saw Doren standing there.

“Mind if I come in?” he asked. I tried to answer but I couldn’t speak. My mouth was way too dry, so I just nodded my head and he walked in. I saw another shadow stop outside the door. Doren looked at the glass. “You should drink that, to help heal,” he said. I reached for the glass and started drinking from the straw. Immediately I recoiled from the taste. Not that it was bad, quite the opposite. It tasted like nothing I was expecting. In my fourth foster home my foster dad made an amazing homemade macaroni and cheese dish. This was that, but in drink form. My brain had trouble collating the two but I drained the glass fast enough. I set the empty glass down and suddenly felt a lot stronger. Not, like, combat ready but I felt like I could at least walk. I started to get out when Doren stopped me. “No, man, just rest. It’s late anyway,” he said. He gently pushed me back into the bed. I noticed he was all goat now. Or half goat. I should think these through.

“How late is it?” I asked, my voice hoarse. Doren thought a second.

“Campfire just ended so pretty late, almost bedtime for the other campers,” he said. “By the by, someone wanted to meet you. Mind if she comes in?” I shrugged and he called for the person to enter. It was the girl who had saved me on the hill. Her black hair was shaved on the left side, not pinned. The right side hung down to her shoulder. Now that I could see more and wasn’t blacking out, she was well built. Not cyclops built but for a girl my age she was as tall as me but had more muscle. She looked like she could take down at least five other kids and then some. But then her eyes were a calming baby blue. What an odd contrast. To further add she was wearing a bright orange shirt with black text reading CAMP HALF-BLOOD, the ‘camp’ and ‘half-blood’ separated by a basic drawing of a cabin, and jeans. She walked up to my bed and examined me. She was silent for several seconds before she said,

“You took a hellhound landing on you pretty well,” with a smile. I swallowed, finally able to salivate.

“Uh, thanks? I think.” I said.

“Jeremiah, this is Charity, daughter of Ares. Charity, this is Jeremiah,” Doren said. I looked to her.

“A daughter of Ares is named Charity?” I asked. Immediately I knew I said something wrong since she started frowning.

“You got a problem?” she asked.

“No, no, no… no,” I said. “Ares is a pretty, uh, cool guy. I think. I assume. I hope.” I looked into Charity’s baby blue eyes and the irritation subsided. She smiled.

“Dad’s fine, I guess. Never met him. He lets us fight our own battles,” she said. We all sat or stood in a moment of awkwardness before she spoke again. “Look,” she said, “I’m not good with this sort of thing, but I figured I’d at least come see you and see how you’re doing. So, uh” she trailed off and we heard bells ringing.

“That’s the harpies, you better get to your cabin,” Doren said. Charity nodded and started to head out.

“Thank you,” I said, stopping her at the door. “For saving me, I mean.” She looked back at me and smiled.

“No biggie,” she said. Then she left.

“No biggie, huh?” I asked. “Just saved my life while being super cool.” Doren laughed.

“Charity is pretty nice for a child of Ares. Some of them are kinda mean, like Clarisse. But that’s for tomorrow. Get some more rest, I’ll get you in the morning and we’ll meet the director,” he said. He walked out, waving goodbye. I waved back and fell onto my pillows. Before I knew it I was back to sleep. This time I did dream.

I was somewhere else in the country. I think California since there were palm trees everywhere and people were still wearing summer clothes. I was on the sidewalk outside a black marble building. Above the doorway was a sign reading “D.O.A Recording Studio”. The doors were mostly glas, letting me look in. The lobby was full of people. All different kinds of sizes, ages, races, all sitting in this recording studio lobby. But none of them seemed to be anxious or nervous. They just listed around the lobby. Some of them had outfits belonging to other decades. Many were standing, but they didn’t seem to care. At the back of the room a dark skinned man in a nice looking suit looked up at me from a desk. He wore sunglasses that reflected the lobby. He raised an eyebrow at me, confused as to why I would be here. I started to reach for the door handle but the man shook his head. He said something I couldn’t hear and went back to looking at his desk. I wasn’t able to read lips, yet the meaning of what he said came to me.

“Not your time, not the place” was what the man had said. My time? The right place? I wanted to ask him what he meant, but I felt like that would be a bad idea. Suddenly the whole building gave off an unsettling aura. I backed away. It was as if the man’s words were making themselves a reality, this wasn’t the time or place for me to be here. Then the dream shifted.

I was back on the hill leading into camp and it was a warzone. A blond guy was running up the hill, carrying a small blonde girl who was crying and screaming and hitting him, wanting the guy to let her go. Behind them one girl was fighting off what looked like the hordes of Hell. Hellhounds, cyclops, and other monstrosities circled the girl as she swung a spear around. Above the fray three old women with bat wings flew in circles like vultures. The girl had spiky black hair and was fighting way better than she should have. She had claw marks all over, blood flowing from wounds and staining the grass. A hellhound leapt at the girl but she casually thrust her spear into its chest and it dissolved. From behind a woman with snake trunks for legs swung a sword and hit the leg of the girl. She fell to one knee and the monsters advanced, attacking and covering her.

I was ripped from the battle and now was at… a funeral? It was outside in a graveyard on an overcast day. A small group of people were gathered around a grave, a backhoe parked beside the gathering. Men of varying ages were lowering a coffin into the grave with ropes. They looked like they’d rather be anywhere else but they did what they were paid to do. Around the pallbearers was a small group of about three people. Two of them were an old couple and I mean old. They looked like they were in their seventies. They shed tears so they must have been the person’s parents or grandparents. Beside them was a woman in her twenties who was crying so hard her makeup was running. Such a small gathering for someone. Surely this person must have had more people to mourn them. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of someone. I turned to face them and only got a second before they disappeared. It was a guy standing stoic at the side of the grave, yet no one acknowledged him. He had long black hair and looked handsome but that’s all I could gather before he was gone. I looked around and couldn’t find any trace of him. At the foot of the grave beside the mourning group a priest walked up holding a Bible and began reading a eulogy. It was then that I was ripped from the dream. 

I woke up to morning light streaming through windows I hadn’t noticed the previous night. I sat up, confused. What in the world had I seen?

“Ah, so our newest member is up,” I heard an older voice say. I looked up and saw a teacher. Or the guy looked like a teacher in a wheelchair. He had brown hair and a trimmed beard. He looked to be in maybe his mid-forties or something, but his eyes betrayed a lot more age. He motored into the room and I sat up. He stopped and turned to me. “How are you this morning?” he asked. I thought about it.

“Tired, confused, excited, scared… a lot of stuff,” I said. The old guy smiled sympathetically.

“Not uncommon,” he said. “There’s no need to worry, you’re safe now. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood, I’m the camp director Chiron.” I stared back at him.

“I don’t remember you,” I said. Good job, me. Chiron, however, chuckled.

“That’s all right, though I do question the quality of your classical studies in school if you never heard of me,” he said. “For a quick introduction, I am a teacher. I’ve taught many heroes from Jason to Achilles to Heracles and now to this camp. I’m here to give the tour, show you the orientation video, and then introduce you to your cabin mates.” Chiron looked genuine about who he was so I really didn’t go against him. I slowly got out of bed, feeling stiff as all get out. I stretched and felt the stiffness even more. Then something occurred to me.

“Chiron, sir, how long was I asleep?” I asked.

“Two days,” Chiron said. “That hellhound landing on you did a number on your arms and ribs. But you were very cooperative while unconscious so we managed to feed you the nectar you needed. You might be stiff for the next few days but after that you should be fit to begin training properly.” Oh man, two days. After almost a month of travel and several fights, two days seemed like it wasn’t enough yet also too much time. Chiron held out some clothes for me, which I took.

“Clothes?” I asked.

“A camp shirt and some new pants. Your current ones will be washed by the end of the day and returned. The new clothes are a gift from us,” he said. I took them, noticing my clothes had a funky smell to them, and changed in the bathroom. The shirt fit me fine, the pants were a bit short in the legs but then again I never was a jeans person. I examined myself in the mirror. Over the last month I’d lost some weight I couldn’t afford to really lose. Maybe I’d gained some muscle but I was never big to begin with. Now I could be called scrawny. I hadn’t paid attention but my hair grew out longer than I preferred, almost reaching my shoulders. It was barely shorter than Charity’s right side. I ran a hand through it, brushing it roughly back. I needed to get a cut.

I exited the bathroom and Chiron told me to leave my clothes on the bed since he had told someone to pick them up for cleaning today. I did so and followed him outside to the porch of a house. It was an absurdly nice day out with big, puffy clouds in the sky shining bright as they reflected the sun. All around me the camp was alive with activity. I managed to pick out an arena where campers were sparring with swords and shields which surprised me. I could get real weapons in real combat but in training? From there I saw an open air pavilion with a bunch of tables, what looked like a lava wall, a cluster of twelve cabins, and the giant pine tree on the hill. I thought back to my dream and remembered that there was no pine tree while that girl was fighting. Chiron rolled past me on his wheelchair and down a ramp onto the grass. I saw no paths so I figured that was a bit weird. Then he stood up. He stood and stepped out of the wheelchair but he didn’t have normal legs. Where his legs would be was a white horse body. From the waist up he remained the same so I focused on that in order to not fall over. He turned to me and must have found my expression amusing.

“Your first time seeing a centaur I presume, Jeremiah,” he said. I nodded. “Well fear not,” he said, “I just like stretching once in a while.” I followed him off the porch and realised that the house I just exited was the massive house I’d seen when I first saw the valley. It was a bright blue and dominated the green landscape of the camp. Chiron explained that it was the Big House and was where he stayed. From there he gave me the general tour. He showed me the dining pavilion, the arena (where I noticed Charity standing among other campers) with campers practicing. The guy teaching was tall and blond, going slow for some of the newer campers. Chiron assured me that the practice was (mostly) safe and watched closely to prevent unnecessary injury or death. I saw the canoe lake, the vineyards where strawberries dominated, the edge of the woods (which I was told not to enter alone unless I was either really good or ready to die), the forge where the camp got its weapons, and the cabins.

The cabins were interesting. Each one was unique and clearly tailored to fit each god with plenty of room between them. Chiron was mildly impressed when I could pick out some of them. He elaborated the rest for me: Zeus and Hera (empty), Poseidon (empty also), Demeter (covered in plant life, goddess of the harvest), Ares (which we avoided since Chiron said he wasn’t sure where the land mines were buried and I couldn’t tell if he was joking), Athena (which looked pretty high-tech in an ancient kind of way), Apollo, Artemis (empty again), Hephaestus (which had smoke pouring from smokestacks), Aphrodite (which looked well designed at least), Dionysus, and finally Hermes at cabin eleven.

Cabin eleven looked the most stereotypical for a camp cabin. Mostly run down, but functional. It wasn’t super special like Zeus or even Ares. Chiron opened the door (which he was too tall for) and I entered. It was mostly empty except for a couple of boys my age and a few others. Everyone stood up as soon as they saw Chiron.

“Connor, Travis,” he said and the two boys approached. I noticed they were identical twins, but one was taller. “Show Jeremiah around the cabin, I’ve got some quick business to attend to and I’ll pick him back up to end the tour. Luke’s busy with practice so I’m trusting you two to not teach him anything distasteful.” The boys, Connor and Travis, nodded in unison. Chiron smiled and cantered away. I turned to my cabin mates, the rest of which returned to sitting around.

“So I’m Travis,” the taller one said.

“I’m Connor,” the other one said.

“We’re not twins, by the way,” Travis said. “I’m a couple years older.”

“But we both share dad’s looks,” Connor said with a grin. They both had curly black hair and the kind of features I found in class clowns. Upturned eyebrows, constant smiles, fidgety hands. I couldn’t tell if they wanted to help me, steal from me, or prank me.

“I’m Jeremiah,” I said, nervous. Travis took my hand and shook it, passing it to Connor for the same treatment.

“So are you unclaimed?” Connor asked.

“Unclaimed?”

“Yeah, you don’t know who your godly parent is,” Travis elaborated.

“Uh, yeah.” I said. A couple of the other campers in the cabin groaned but Connor and Travis were all smiles.

“It’s no biggie,” Travis said. “Just means we need to find a floor spot for you.” The brothers looked around before settling in on a spot in the corner that was clear. They brought me over. It was in the back and away from everything but the bathroom. Then I noticed that there were bedrolls and sleeping bags on the floor between the beds.

“Hermes isn’t picky about who he sponsors,” Connor elaborated. “So all the unclaimed demigods come here until they are claimed.”

“So when does that happen?” I asked. The brothers looked at each other and shrugged.

“No one knows, really,” said Travis.

“Could be tonight, could be in a couple years,” said Connor. I frowned. That didn’t seem to bode too well for me.

“Just enjoy the cabin of chill,” Travis said. “Don’t worry yourself about your godly parent for now, it’s out of your control.” Connor rushed off before bringing back a sleeping bag with a couple thin pillows and a blanket. He set them down for me in my new spot and I unrolled it.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Like I said, no biggie, just enjoy cabin eleven while you’re here,” said Connor. It was then Chiron knocked on the cabin door and I was sent back outside with promises that my stuff, which I had just got, would be where I left it. So it was decided and Chiron took me on the last couple locations of the tour. He showed me the archery station before the big tree hill, which he called Half-Blood Hill. I looked at the tree. It was a massive pine tree, yet the hill reeked of a sadness here now that I could stand and appreciate it.

“Chiron, did someone die here?” I asked. Chiron’s expression looked suddenly pained. I was worried I’d gone too far when he sighed and said,

“Sadly, yes. Thalia, a daughter of Zeus, sacrificed herself on this hill three years ago to let her friends get across the camp’s borders safely.” He looked at the tree. “As she lay dying her father transformed her into this pine tree. Her spirit helps to reinforce the borders.” Chiron turned to me, his expression sad. “I’d avoid bringing the topic up if I were you. To some it’s still a very painful event.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “It’s just that… I had a dream about that. I think.” I relayed my dream to him and Chiron’s face went from pained to curious to just tired.

“It’s curious that you’d dream about that event,” he said. “Perhaps it’s a clue as to your godly parent, but we can’t be sure.” I suddenly got an urge. Just like with the hole in Chicago, I felt something pull me. It wasn’t a voice, but it was… something. I walked past Chiron up to the tree. I stood before it, trying to imagine the girl from my dream. Spike black hair, blue eyes, screaming as she fought a final stand to a bloody end. I reached out a hand and felt the trunk of the tree. I closed my eyes and thought about it. I couldn’t tell you why at the time, but I tried to send some thoughts to the tree. Maybe some form of goodbye to a girl I’d never known, maybe an attempt to sooth the tree. I couldn’t say.

What scared me was when I felt the tree respond.

Something within the tree responded to my thoughts and sent something back. A jumbled image jolted through my head along with a word. I jerked my hand away from the tree. Chiron appeared beside me.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. I held my hand, thinking. The image in my head was like a still frame. Through a swarm of monsters I saw two silhouettes running away to safety. With the image came a sense of reluctant resignation, as if the point of view didn’t really want to die like this, yet it was the only option. Besides the image a word had been sent through my head.

Tired. I had no idea what it meant. I felt Chiron’s hand squeeze my shoulder and I started. I looked into his brown eyes and wondered what I should tell him. I had no idea why I’d keep info from him, but this felt… too weird.

No, the word was terrifying.

“Nothing,” I said. “Just… kind of sad to be here.” Chiron stared into my eyes, trying to pull more info out of me. But he let my shoulder go and simply said,

“All right. Let’s go to the big house, I’ll introduce you to the overseer of the camp.” He started walking away towards the Big House. I followed him to the massive house, only now appreciating all four stories of it. Chiron led me onto the porch which wrapped around the house. At the back was someone I did not expect. A chubby guy in his mid forties was sitting at a table shuffling cards. I’d seen alcoholics and this guy fit that idea to a T. His eyes were bloodshot, his face was flushed, and he had a bit of a belly on him. He wore a Hawaiian shirt that was so loud I felt like I needed earplugs. It screamed at everything and demanded to be looked at. Beside him was a can of Diet Coke, the top popped. The alcoholic took a sip from the can before returning to shuffling the cards.

“Almost late for Pinochle, Chiron,” he said. Chiron’s wheelchair was beside the table and he lowered himself into it. I can’t quite explain how it worked but soon enough he looked like a regular person again. He motored over to the table and the alcoholic guy stared at me. “Only this one?” he asked.

“Doren is busy with other duties,” Chiron explained. “So it’s just us today Mr. D.” Mr. D let out an irritable sigh and dealt the cards.

“I suppose introductions are in order,” Mr. D said. He looked at me like I was the last thing he wanted to deal with. “I’m sure Chiron showed you everything so I must introduce myself. I am Dionysus, god of wine, assigned to watch you brats for the next century.” He looked at his hand and he set a card down. Chiron started looking at this hand, set down a card, and Mr. D started again. I was staring at Mr. D, trying to process his claim.

“You’re an actual god?” I finally asked. That wasn’t the right thing since Mr. D took an angry sip from his Diet Coke.

“No respect since the old days, I swear,” he muttered.

“The boy is only somewhat educated Mr. D,” Chiron said. “The idea an actual god could be here is a new idea.”

“Yes, yes,” said Mr. D as he set down a couple cards. “But I remember the days when people would grovel at being in my presence. Now every half-blood that shows up asks questions and doesn’t believe. They need an example.” Mr. D finished his drink. He set the can down and snapped his fingers as he perused his cards. Another can of Diet Coke appeared out of thin air.

“Oh,” I said.

“Yes, oh, mister…” he looked at me for a second.

“Jeremiah. Garron,” I said.

“Yes, Jerry Gavin, that should be enough to satisfy your mortal curiosity.”

“It’s Jeremiah,” I said, wanting not to offend him.

“I’m sure it is,” he said. Chiron gave me a sympathetic look. “Do you know your godly parent Johnny?” Mr. D asked.

“Uh no Mr. D. Sir,” I stammered. Mr. D made an elongated hmmmmmmmmmmmm sound as he looked at his hand. Then he smiled and set down a card. 

“Victory!” he said. Then Chiron set down a card silently. Mr. D looked at it, frowning deeply. I wasn’t sure what happened but I presumed Chiron just won the game. Mr. D sat back in his chair and took a long drag on his soda before setting down with a resigned sigh. He gathered the cards and began shuffling again. This seemed like a regular occurance.

“Uh…” I started. I was beginning to wonder if I should still stay here when Mr. D snapped his fingers and a manilla folder appeared on the table.

“That should give you the information you need, Jeremy. I managed to dig it up for your sake,” he said. In the distance a horn sounded. I looked around and noticed that the sun was beginning to dip down to the horizon. I really lost track of time. Chiron pulled away from the table and handed me the folder.

“Take this and read it by yourself later,” he said. “I’ll meet you at dinner, which is signalled by that horn.” He left his wheelchair and, in centaur form, ran over to the pavilion. Without anything else to do (and Mr. D giving me the stink eye) I ran back to cabin eleven. I managed to make my way back inside. It was mostly empty since everyone was lining up. I found my spot (with everything still there) and I slid my folder into my sleeping bag. I joined the line at the back just as it was heading over to the pavilion. We were led by the blond guy I’d seen earlier in the arena. We sat down and nymphs from the woods started handing out plates to everyone at the tables.  
To accommodate the amount of people it had the Hermes cabin had a bigger table, but space was still tight. I managed to squeeze in on the end right across from Connor and Travis. Before all of us were plates of delicious looking food and cups that were full for everyone but me.

“Is this a joke for dinner?” I asked the brothers, who told me their last name was Stoll.

“Nah,” said Travis. “Just think about whatever drink you want.”

“Non-alcoholic, of course,” Connor finished. I looked down at my empty cup and thought about it. Suddenly it filled with bubbling brown soda. I took a sip just to confirm and it was indeed pepsi.

“Okay, that’s pretty cool,” I said. Then campers started standing up and heading into the giant hearth in the middle by the main table. Before I could ask the Stolls filled me in.

“We sacrifice the best parts of our meals to the gods,” Connor explained.

“You’d be surprised how good burning food smells,” Tavis added. Now they were joshing me. But my place in lane came up and I dumped the best part of my meal into the fire, silently hoping that my godly parent would be willing to claim me soon if only just to take away some of the mystery in my life. I’m not sure if it was a sign but the food I sent into the fire smelled… not great. It wasn’t unbearable. Actually the smell itself was pretty great, but there was something behind it. Like smelling it injected my brain with a concentrated dose of guilt and cold. Yet there was a desire there as well. A small pile of embers in a cold wind. I sat back down and finished my meal with that feeling lingering in my head.

Soon Chiron called for attention, announcing the welcoming of the newest camper (me) along with praise for Charity for saving me, a girl named Ananbeth who got Charity's attention, and Doren who got great approval from the council, whatever that was. Cue a lot of applause and spattered cheers. Then Chiron announced that capture the flag would be happening this Friday with the Ares cabin leading against Athena. Lots of cheers for that. I caught a glimpse of Charity cheering with her cabin mates.

“We’re allied with Ares, you know,” Travis said. I looked at him and noticed him and his brother were both smirking at me.

“What?” I asked.

“Ares did some negotiations and Hermes is on their side for capture the flag this week,” Connor said. “So I mean if things got worked out well, you could be fighting with Charity there.” He raised an eyebrow at me. I’ll admit it took me way longer than it should have to catch on.

“What, no, wait, it’s not like that,” I said. “Like sure she’s pretty but…” I stopped when they looked sidelong at each other. They said nothing. I could feel myself turning red.

“Well, let’s keep that option open,” Travis said. He took a big swig of his drink as campers started getting up. “For now,” he said when he finished, “we head to the campfire and sing some songs.” He and his brother stood and I followed their lead. Soon we were all seated at the amphitheater as kids from the Apollo cabin lead songs that everyone joined in on. The campfire started changing to the energy of the singing which was pretty cool. It was pretty cozy sitting around the fire, roasting marshmallows, and singing dumb songs. It would have been better if someone hadn’t knocked me on the back and caused my first marshmallow to fall into the fire. I watched it burn to death and turn into black ashes. Then a hand reached out with one. I followed the arm to see Charity.

“Looks like I saved you again,” she joked. I took the marshmallow and chuckled.

“Uh, yeah, thanks.” The more I think back on myself when I was thirteen I realize that I was a moron. To her credit Charity took it in stride.

“First day nerves, eh? You’ll get used to all this,” she said. I noticed a necklace on her neck with one bead on it.

“You only get used to it after a year?” I asked, inferring the purpose of the bead. Charity raised an eyebrow.

“Maybe,” she said, smiling. “I suppose after a year it’s all so weird.” The songs ended and people started leaving. Charity stood to follow her cabin. “See you at capture the flag,” she said over her shoulder. I felt something in me get excited at the notion.

“It’s not like that,” Travis said over my head.

“Sure, she’s pretty, but….” Connor said on the other side. I looked up at the two of them and they burst out laughing. I groaned knowing they wouldn’t let this go. I followed them back to the cabin. Everyone was getting ready to head off to bed. I saw Connor and Travis talking to the blond guy who was nodding and smiling. I plopped myself down into my corner and pulled out the manilla folder that Mr. D gave me and opened it up.  
Inside was an obituary for a woman named Helena Garron. There were several pictures of her inside. An elementary school one in black and white showing a young girl with black hair and braces on her big smile. Cut to high school graduation where she looked very pretty with glossy black hair in her cap and gown. After that was a proper color photo with her and some friends. Her hair was shorter but she still looked pretty. I could tell now her skin was quite pale. After that was a mugshot where she looked grungy. Her hair was a mess and she looked angry at the world. The obituary read as such:

Helena Garron graduated with honors from her highschool in Washington before she attended Washington State University before dropping out. She later became a mortician for a local funeral home, eventually arrested on drug possession charges before returning to her job. Friends say she went through a rough patch and later became pregnant. On November 3rd at 9:15 in the morning she was pronounced dead after giving birth. She is survived by her parents and her newborn son, Jeremiah.

The blond guy called lights out and I closed the folder and slid it under my sleeping bag. Now I had to deal with this all night. Thanks Mr. D. I lay in the darkness for a while listening to the rustling of my fellow cabin mates with my brain running multiple thoughts at once about how this woman was my mother. Eventually I managed to fall asleep.

My dreams took care to make sure it was restless.


	4. I Get Into a Fight (And I lose because I suck)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeremiah has his first proper day at camp and learns something about himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise not all chapters will be this boring. I'm gonna take this chance to work on my character dialogue writing to make it more engaging. It's nice tackling this kind of thing again.

Prospective reader let me be the most recent mythology afflicted person to say that dreams can suck a lot. For demigods, at least, dreams let us experience the past, see what’s going on elsewhere, and generally ruin our nights. Everyone deals with various bad dreams that refuse to leave us alone. What’s even worse is that some entities can send you specific dreams or messages if they so choose. Otherwise our sleeping minds are at the mercy of our heritage. They suck but they can be quite useful. That’s the entire mantra of the Greek way of doing things.

Basically I had some weird and off putting dreams that first real night at Camp Half-Blood.

My first one brought me back to a time that I think should have been sepia toned. I was back at camp but it was very different. The cabins had a different style to them, the landscape looked different, and everyone was walking around with brandished weapons. I was in the central area of the cabins and campers were walking around wearing armour. Some had swords, spears, and the like. Others carried muskets resting against their shoulders as they walked. Pouches of ammo jingled on their belts. Under their armour some of the campers wore blue jackets and blue pants, like members of the Union army I’d seen in my textbooks. Then the dream shifted and I was in the woods standing beside a massive limestone cliff. The side was open like doors and inside campers hustled about. I walked inside, appreciating the size of it. It was absurdly massive with what I think were children of Hephaestus working to make weapons. There was a large table where several campers and Chiron were analyzing a map. I walked up and no one noticed me as a camper pointed to a spot.

“The enemy is over here, and we have traps planted here, here, and here,” he said as he pointed. I looked up at Chiron. He looked absolutely tired and old, but still similar to how I knew him. He had a breastplate on and a quiver of arrows over his shoulder. He analyzed the map before pointing to another spot.

“What about here?” he asked.

“We’ve got our Apollo scouts in that area planting as we speak,” the camper said. He had grease in his hair and on his face. He looked as tired as Chiron. He slammed a hand on a separate piece of paper and muttered “I just wish I knew what this meant.” I looked over at the paper. On it was a sketch of a blueprint for a massive ship. Before I could give it any meaningful analysis I was pulled away violently. 

Despite it being a dream I leaned on the nearest wall and tried to breathe deeply as my stomach lurched. I looked around and realized that I was in a sparsely populated bar. Some grungy dudes sat at the bar itself taking drinks. The tables and booths were mostly empty except for a pair that caught my eye. In one of the booths sat a young pale woman who sat opposite another young woman with brown hair who looked much more put together. They were in the middle of a conversation as I walked up.

“How far along are you?” the brown haired woman asked. The pale woman looked up and I caught my breath. This was Helena, my mother.

“Couple weeks,” she said. I could hear the distaste in her voice. “I’m gonna see if I can get something done about it.” She reached to grab a glass but there was nothing there and she sighed in resignation.

“Helena, you should just carry the kid, put it up for adoption if you want,” the other woman said. My mother’s frown deepened.

“But I don’t want the kid,” she spat. “I don’t wanna deal with it, I don’t wanna raise it, I don’t wanna pawn it off onto someone else… I just wanna live my life but he-” she stopped and clenched a fist. “I told him I didn’t want it but he goes off and leaves me with this.”

“You don’t have any contact info? Phone number, address, PO box?” the other woman asked. She leaned in and asked “Do you even know where he’s from?” Helena glared at what I presumed was her friend. Looking at her I recognized her from the funeral dream I had the other night.

“I know where he’s from but…” she leaned back and sighed. “I won’t be able to talk to him. He said that he won’t be able to make time since he might be…” she paused and let the sentence fall off. Before anything else was said I was pulled away into consciousness.

I was woken up by activity in the Hermes cabin as campers got up and started arguing over who would get to brush their teeth first. I sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I saw people lining up. I looked down and realized that I had slept in my clothes last night. Good going, me. Just then a small pile of clothes was tossed into my lap. This included my old clothes, now washed, and a couple spare camp shirts. I looked up to see the blond guy standing above me with an amiable smile. He dropped into a squat beside me as the line slowly advanced.

“Hey, sorry I didn’t catch you yesterday, name’s Luke,” he said, outstretching a hand. I shook it. “I’m your head counsellor,” he said. He was a decent looking guy with long-ish blond hair and blue eyes. Kind of like the usual surfer dude you see in movies but he looked less chill. “Jeremiah right?” he asked. “Here are your clothes and a couple spares from the store I, ah, acquired.” He winked at that.

“Oh, thanks a lot,” I said. I realised that it wasn’t much of a thanks. “Sorry, I’m just tired, weird dreams.” Luke waved his hand.

“No sweat,” he said. “Also get used to weird dreams, that’s one of the annoying parts of being a half-blood.”

“Is the worst part not knowing your parent?” I asked impulsively. I winced as I said it but Luke just gave me a wry smile.

“Already bitter?” he asked.

“No, no, just… I wish I knew. No one has any clues and the dreams I had never gave me any clues, it’s all so…” I sighed. “Like when I was in foster homes I could just ignore it but now my dad is a massive part of my identity and now I’m worrying myself about it.” I looked to Luke who looked a few years older than me now that I could see him. His smile was sympathetic.

“Hey, some advice? Just forget about it. You’ll get claimed one day and you’ll have a weight lifted from your shoulders. But for now just enjoy being at camp. No one’s gonna discriminate against you for being unclaimed or anything,” he put a hand on my shoulder, “you enjoy Hermes’s hospitality in all forms. You know the phrase ‘don’t kill the messenger’? That applies to you too. If anyone does bully you for that then they’ll have to deal with me.” He gave me a reassuring look. “Plus I saw you’ve made friends with the Stoll brothers and they can pull some devious pranks.” He patted my shoulder. “So don’t worry and have fun today. We’re gonna have sword practice later in the afternoon and some of the Ares kids are gonna come help.” He got up and left me with my clothes and his advice. I wasn’t sure how to process everything right now so I got in back of the line and waited to freshen up.

Once I was done and changed into my old pants and a new camp shirt I made my way t the toilets which were… well toilets. I mean I guess I expected better bathrooms but I did my business and got ready for my day of activities.

I wasn’t good at any of them. I mean I wasn’t abysmal. At least Chiron said that with some practice I could learn how to aim my bow properly and be an okay archer. Pottery wasn’t all that impressive either. My hands got covered in wet clay and made a mess on the floor and the result was… I think a cup. After pottery was running and try as I might I wasn’t great at that either. Like I could run, I wasn’t that inept. It’s just that the dryads, as I learned they were called, were way too fast. I asked why dryads were teaching running like this and the response I got was that you never know when you’d need to run from a god some day, like they had to. When I asked what kind of god would be interested in me the dryad who was teaching me laughed and said,

“You’d be surprised.” On that note the lunch signal blared and I want to go eat, thankful for some rest and time to not think about things for a few minutes. Lunch was loud and bustling with campers talking about things. Connor and Travis held a conversation with me during lunch about how things were going. When I relayed some of my difficulties they just shrugged, but were sympathetic.

“You just haven’t found your niche yet,” said Travis between bites of his sandwich. “Sometimes it takes people a while to find out what they’re good at and it’s around that point that their parent claims them.”

“That’s not a hard and fast rule,” Connor clarified. “But it’s something to consider. Maybe your godly parent wants you to prove yourself in a specific way and they’re waiting to see if it’s worth the attention right now.”

“That sounds…” I wanted to say ignorant but I wasn’t sure that would go over well upstairs. “Not great.” Travis and Connor just shrugged.

“It’s just how the gods are, they’re not ones to change much,” said Travis.

“Back in the day some demigods had to really prove themselves to be properly claimed by their godly parent. It’s less about that nowadays but sometimes a child of Ares has to pull some real sick moves to be claimed early,” Connor said. I mulled on this as lunch ended and I went to my next activity: sword practice. Travis and Connor showed me the way to the sword arena where a group of Hermes campers gathered. A few feet away were five other campers from the Ares cabin. I saw Charity there with a sword at her side and a shield on her back. Beside her was another girl. She had stringy blonde hair, angry eyes, huge arms, and a spear strapped across her back. She looked like she wanted to be anywhere but here.

“Clarisse,” Travis said. “Daughter of Ares. Watch the spear, she’s real mean with it.” With Charity and Clarisse were three guys who looked about as big and mean as Clarisse. Charity was a fraction smaller but she wore an orange tank top that showed off her arms and hers were still terrifying.

“Okay!” Luke called as he strode forward into the arena, waving his arms for calm. “Today’s practice is gonna be a bit different. Some of the Ares cabin decided to give you guys some training with weapons that aren’t swords since you guys are tired of me winning.” a groan escaped the crowd as Luke grinned. “For example Clarisse here is gonna show you guys the fundamentals of spears and how to fight them. Do I have any volunteers?” As he waited for an answer Clarisse walked across the arena to his side, brandishing the weapon. The tip was celestial bronze in the shape of an elongated diamond on top of a well made shaft. Clarisse held it with such familiarity that I was intimidated at what she might do with it.

“Watch this,” Travis whispered into my ear. Then he stood tall and said “are you sure Clarisse is the best spear wielder? I thought Sherman had some better techniques if I’m honest.”

“I’ve been watching them,” Connor said. “And I think Sherman has the edge to be honest.” I looked around. The guy who must have been Sherman frowned. He was an Asian guy who looked a bit older than Clarisse. For her part Clarisse scowled at the Stoll brothers with a venom.

“You punks got a problem?” she growled. The crowd split, including myself, to expose the Stolls. They returned Clarisse’s glare with smiles.

“Just wondering if you’re really as skilled as Luke is purporting,” Travis said. He tried sounding innocent but I heard an excited edge in his voice. Clarisse must have missed that because she slammed the bottom of her spear against the stone floor. She looked ready to charge them.

“If you are so skilled, surely you could take us both on,” Connor added. He walked forward with a swagger, arms out. Travis followed. As they met I saw their arms fall to their sides and pass something between them so quickly I almost missed it. Clarisse gritted her teeth.

“Fine, I’ll beat both of you punks into the dirt,” she said before moving to the other side of the arena. Travis and Connor, for their part, picked a couple of swords from a table of weapons and walked into the arena. Everyone parted and watched as Clarisse took a stance with her spear. Travis and Connor readied themselves.

“They’re dead meat,” I hear Luke say beside me. “I have no idea why they’re egging Clarisse on like that but I’m sure it’s something.”

“Level with me, is she that good?” I asked. Luke grinned.

“Clarisse with her spear is something to behold. Probably close to…” he trailed off. Something sparked in my mind. My dream about Thalia, daughter of Zeus, showed her wielding a spear and shield. Running away from the fight was a blond guy and a young blonde girl. I didn’t bring it up but I looked at Luke and if I aged him down a tad in my mind then he fit the bill exactly. I heard the sound of metal clashing and turned to the arena. Clarisse held her spear horizontal as she blocked the Stoll brothers strikes simultaneously. She twisted her spear and knocked their swords out of their hands. Travis ducked low and pulled a dagger out as Connor picked his sword back up and charged Clarisse. He swung wildly as she blocked each strike. I could see her eyes moving constantly, taking in every detail. She saw Travis move but Connor got into her field of view and pushed her. She started jabbing at him to get him to back off. Connor blocked as Travis quietly circled around Clarisse to her blind spot.  
He ran at her, dagger raised. Clarisse swiped at Connor and forced him to jump back and in one fluid movement she brought the swing around behind her back and Travis had to block with his dagger. He tossed something over her shoulder and Connor snatched it. Clarisse fully turned to Travis and thrust her spear at him. Connor rushed and got the back end of her shaft in his gut. It was blunt but the crowd groaned un sympathy. His left hand touched her lower back but I couldn’t see what happened as she brought the back end of her spear up and knocked Travis down on his back. Connor fell on his butt as he reached into his pocket for something. Clarisse walked up to Travis and raised her spear tip above him. The crowd went silent as Travis stared at the point of Clarisse’s spear.

Then the sound of a deflating balloon echoed through the arena. It took me a second to realize that it sounded like a fart. And it came from Clarisse. Still holding her spear, her face turned the most embarrassed red I’d ever seen.

“Oh no,” I heard Luke mutter. The crowd started laughing as Clarisse dropped her spear, reaching around her back until she pulled what Connor had put on her belt loop. A tiny speaker. From the speaker the sounds of farts emanated, bringing out more laughs from the crowd. Clarisse threw the speaker on the ground but it only bounced, still spewing fart noises.

“I’ll kill you punks!” she screamed as she charged Travis. But her brothers grabbed her by the arms and dragged her out of the arena literally kicking and screaming obscenities at the brothers. Travis and Connor stood, grabbed hands, and did a stage bow like at a play. The gathered campers kept laughing. Once everything had quieted down Luke managed to arrange a much more productive training session with the one Ares camper who was holding a massive battle axe. It was actually a pretty informative lecture with slow and real time hits to show why going hard with large swings was nice and all, but impractical in the long run unless you were against something big and slow. He also showed that while a big swing could do some damage if it did hit a smaller swing could have more force behind it and make more pressure. He demonstrated by cracking a shield held by a Hermes camper in two. The guy's arm was fine but the shield split loudly and fell to the floor, defeated. Clarisse’s brothers returned to the arena informing us that Clarisse was still having a fit and was being kept busy. I saw Connor and Travis bumps fists.

The other two guys gave their lectures which were all interesting. I saw Charity standing to the side checking her nails. She pulled a switchblade out of her pocket and started gently cleaning them. I began to wonder why she was here but then again Clarisse was her age. But if Charity had only been here for a year could she be an expert?

“Finally Charity here is gonna teach you all about defense,” Luke said when Sherman finished his lesson. Charity walked up, pulling her shield off her back and onto her left arm. Luke surrendered the floor as Charity gave us all eye contact. I might have been dreaming but I think she lingered on me for a bit longer.

“All right,” she began. “While I’m sure Luke has told you all about how great it is to whip around a sword and only a sword, a shield,” she banged her fist on it, “is an invaluable tool in battle. It can protect, it can attack, and can serve as both a sled in snowy conditions as well as an emergency plate in the real world. A shield augments your versatility ten-fold when paired with another weapon. Paired with a spear you can turtle up and touch your enemy while they can’t touch you. Paired with a standard sword you can be defensive by blocking and retaliating, or you can be offensive and whipping the shield around like a blunt weapon that also blocks.” Charity looked the crowd over to make sure we were paying attention. She drew her sword. “I’m gonna need a volunteer to show you what can be done with the classic sword and board.” She looked over the crowd as a couple people raised their hands. Then her gaze settled on me and she smiled. “New guy, how about you?” she pointed her sword at me.

“Uh…” I said, sounding quite ready to rise to the challenge. Luke nudged me forward and I was suddenly the center of attention. Charity looked me up and down. This was different from when she met me. She sized me up as a combat opponent.

“Let’s start with a sword,” Charity said. I turned around and looked at the table of demonstration weapons. I walked over and picked up a sheathed sword that was a bit too big for me, but I was too scared to pick another one. I unsheathed it and the full weight of it seemed to take over as I could barely hold it up. I gripped it with both hands and raised it. Charity smirked. “All right cupcake I’m gonna go slow at first so pay attention,” she said. She stood opposite me and began lecturing. “First things first I’m gonna show you a block into a parry and disarm. When your opponent swings you stop it with your shield for a fraction of a second before you move it away and go in for the strike.” Charity nodded at me and I swung overhead. I might have gone a bit too hard but Charity swung her shield to meet the blade. It hit at a small angle, deflecting the force, and sending the blade to the side. She brought her sword around in a swing that stopped before it hit me. That didn’t stop me from flinching really hard and dropping the sword. I heard chuckles from the crowd as I straightened out and Charity looked satisfied.

“As you can see,” she said, “try to make your blade not quite perpendicular to your shield. That allows the blade to connect and stop, letting you take over and force it out of their hand or at least away from you. That should be enough to get the killing blow. Now I’ll demonstrate some slow motion spear defenses and then I’ll let Jeremiah here try to kill me.” I just walked over to the table and grabbed a spear. Lifting it up it felt way better than the sword and even the dagger Doren gave me. I gripped the shaft and lowered it at Charity as she started explaining about doing the same thing with a basic spear thrust. With her approval I thrust the spear at her and she deflected the weapon. This time I kept my grip on it and brought it back into the starting position with a spin over my head. I have no idea how I did that but a couple sarcastic whistles came from the crowd.

That felt really good. Charity must have seen my expression because she grinned. She told me to go again and I did. She blocked the thrust but instead of deflecting the spear she angled the shield towards her and the spearhead went with it. Then she raised her shield and brought it down on the spear, sending it into the ground. I pulled it back as fast as I could and was back into position. Something was clicking with me and this spear. Charity told me to go for some wide swings and I did. She deflected each one but every time I felt like I was improving on the spot. I got a better sense of the length of the spear. I felt the momentum of the shaft and how to manipulate it.

I felt invincible.

Another demonstration was how to break a spear. After a thrust she caught the head of the spear between her shield and sword, but didn’t break it. It was then that Charity called for a live fire test. First to be disarmed was the loser. I gripped the shaft. Left hand at the back, right hand in front. It was pointed low but it felt right. Charity gave the signal to go and I charged. I went low into an upward swing. It was wide but Charity was forced to deflect with her shield. I brought the spear back and went into a thrust thinking she was still dazed. Instead she caught the spearhead in her sword and shield and promptly broke it. I pulled the shaft back as Charity charged me. I swung the wood but it was useless. She knocked it out of my hand with force and brought her sword to my neck. I flinched hard again and people laughed. I opened my eyes and Charity was smirking as she sheathed her sword. That ended her demonstration. I walked back to the crowd but I felt different. Luke started talking but I wasn’t paying attention. I found myself thinking about what I could have done differently. I was wired up and ready to do more combat training but then I noticed the crowd dispersing, including Charity who was already halfway back to the Ares cabin. I was about to follow when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I jerked around to find Doren standing there.

“Hey man,” he said. “Calm down, just showed up, you weren’ t hearing me.”

“Oh, sorry,” I said. Then I smiled. “Dude I haven’t seen you since you were in my sick room, what have you been doing?”

“Oh just talking with the council,” he said nonchalantly. “I’m off work for the week and I had some other things to deal with. I got some free time and found you at the arena. You done with activities for the day?” I thought about it. Sword practice was the last thing on my list.

“Yeah, what did you wanna do?” I asked.  
“Hang out by the lake?” he asked. I nodded. Doren walked me across the camp and we found ourselves on a small hill near the canoe lake where we sat down and I got to enjoy the late November air. Once we sat down I suddenly realized how tired I was. The adrenaline left my system and I wanted to fall asleep and take a nap.

“Oh man I’m exhausted,” I said. Doren laughed.

“That’s most everyone’s first day at camp,” he said. “Well their first real day doing activities. Just wait until you try the lava climbing wall.”

“The what?”

“You’ll see,” he said. “But don’t be surprised that you get tired after doing activities like fighting. Your ADHD goes into overdrive and you become hyper alert but you’ll get tired. You’ll get used to it and be able to keep going but right now expect to want some naps.”

“Of course,” I said. “That’s not helped by my lack of combat prowess.”

“Ah you’ll get it,” said Doren. “You just need to find your niche.”

“I think that’s spears.” Doren looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

“That’s fast,” he said.

“Well I was using a spear against Charity in practice and it just felt right in my hands,” I said. “I think that’s gonna be my weapon.” I started imagining it. Me on the front lines of a battle, unkillable as long as I had my spear. Tiny opponents fell before me. Then Doren brought me out of it.

“Well if you wanna learn the spear your best bet right now is Clarisse but from what I heard the Stoll brothers gave her quite the embarrassment,” he said. “Plus I heard they took to you so if she associates you with them then she might just kill you if you ask.” I must have gone super white since Doren chuckled. “I mean she won’t ‘kill you’ kill you but she’d be apprehensive about giving you spear lessons at the very least. Worst case scenario she’d beat you up and best case scenario she tells you to go away.” Neither sounded appealing so maybe I could talk her down. But that was a big maybe.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “As a side note, why are we training like this? Doesn’t the camp fight a lot? This seems a bit slow.”

“I meant to explain this before but the camp rarely fights as a whole,” Doren said. “Usually you heroes go on quests alone or in small groups. Monsters can’t attack the camp easily so you can afford to take your time. Especially since quests can be few and far between so don’t expect to go on a quest for a while. Give it a year and maybe you’ll get claimed and get the chance to go on a quest for yourself. Or maybe if you become friends with someone they can bring you along.” Doren shrugged. “You never know.” I mulled on this as we hung out and talked about how camp was going and what I planned to do. As we were talking we heard a noise and saw another satyr running after a dryad who turned into a tree as he got close. He ran head first into the hard trunk and staggered away. “Ah, young love,” Doren said.

“How come you’re not a part of that?” I asked. “I thought chasing nymphs was something satyrs did.” I read that back in school on a web page somewhere. Doren just shrugged.

“Eh, not my thing,” was all he said. “I prefer to go for people who don’t turn into trees. Not that nymphs are inherently bad but…” he trailed off. “Just not my thing.” He didn’t elaborate so I dropped the subject.

“So after this week will you be sent back out as a protector?” I asked. Doren smiled.

“Yeah. I like the job, I get to go out and be with nature that isn’t at camp, get to meet some good people. After all I met you and Charity,” he said. I jerked my head to see him.

“You were Charity’s protector?” 

“Yeah. Scrappy young twelve year old. She got into fights like crazy. Every other day some kid tried her and she beat them into the dirt. Mostly the boys since the girls didn’t want to get their hands dirty. Couple did but that ended the same. Eventually the school had to step in and deal with it since parents were getting really upset. That was when I stepped in and took her to camp.” 

“What about her parents?” I asked. Doren’s smile went sideways.

“I’ll let her tell you about that. It’s a bit personal,” he said. “But that aside I do like being a protector a lot. I get to help people.”

“You said something about nature not at camp, what’s that about?” I asked, dropping the Charity subject.

“Camp’s great and all but sometimes you get a bit tired of talking to the same satyrs and dryads and dealing with the council. We get some new ones or whatever, but the bread and butter of camp is the campers.” Doren stretched, extending his goat legs. “But even then you guys get into routines and all that. Going out to meet new people makes connections. Going out and seeing how nature is in the outside world is fascinating, if a bit sad. But it’s all about those connections, man. Getting to meet new people, seeing new places. It’ll never not be awesome.” Doren smiled nice and wide. But it looked forced. I wanted to ask him more but the horn for dinner echoed throughout the valley and we had to get up. Doren said he’d try and catch me at the campfire before he ran off into the woods. 

Alone I had no choice but to make my way back to the Hermes cabin as they were lining up. I got in back of the line and we walked to the pavilion. Dinner went as per usual. Toast the gods, sacrifice food, eat and enjoy. As we ate, my eyes drifted to the Ares table where I saw Clarisse angrily chewing food. She looked up from her plate and made eye contact with me. Then she saw Travis and Connor sitting across from me. It was then that I finally understood the phrase ‘if looks could kill’ because it felt like Clarisse shoved a spear through me.

Oh man I hope that this wouldn’t impact my ability to ask her for help.

“Hey,” Travis whispered. “You want some advice?”

“What?” I asked. I broke eye contact.

“For spear lessons. You thinking of asking Clarisse?” he asked. I nodded. Connor leaned in.

“I heard from a couple birds that Clarisse might have eyes for Chris,” Connor said, jerking a thumb down the table. Near the middle sat a Hispanic guy who was pretty big muscles wise. I remember seeing him on a floor spot but I never bothered to learn his name. “So if you do plan to talk to Clarisse maybe bring him up as someone who suggested you talk to her,” Connor continued. “She might soften up.”

“And if that doesn’t work?” I asked, now wondering where they heard about what I wanted to do. Probably those birds Connor mentioned. They shrugged.

“I guess take your licks,” Travis said. Then he went back to eating. Great confidence boost, guys. I kept eating and mulling over the issue all throughout dinner and the campfire. I sang along with everyone but my mind was elsewhere, planning out a conversation that I couldn’t predict because I had only been here for a few days at most. Maybe I’d wait. Maybe I should let Clarisse calm down until after capture the flag, especially if we won. Weekends were generally free so I could talk to her then. Yeah.  
Before I realized it I was in my spot on the floor of cabin eleven and getting ready for lights out. I lay down in my sleeping bag and fell asleep trying to finalize this plan and try my best to not get my face kicked in.


	5. Someone Help Me (Please Gods Help Me Not Suck at Fighting)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeremiah experiences Capture the Flag and Anxiety.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is jank as fuck. I wasn't feeling up to snuff when I wrote it since I came across an impasse I managed to get by. But it's jank as all get out, see if you can spot where I had the most trouble. Next chapter should be more coherent and less "wow I had no idea how to get to this part". I'm still fiddling with the HTML copy/paste technique I do since I use google docs, I'm not sure if there's a docx upload function that I need to search for.

Future reader (prospective sounds too snooty, I find) let me tell you how much anxiety and pain I put myself through before I asked Clarisse for help.

Too much. Was it worth it? No.

This part of my tale begins with Capture the Flag on Friday. I had had a couple days to get used to camp and I was making progress. I had adjusted to my current routine of rotating activities. As useful as it was I resented cabins for switching up times since it disrupted my routine. However I came to the conclusion that that would be part of it. Travis and Connor were ready to answer any questions I had, as was Luke. However, something was off putting about Luke. Travis and Connor I understood, they were pranksters. They lived to mess around and take things easy, the most focus they put into a project was their pranks. Luke had a weird… aura about him, for lack of a better term. He was nice and carried some of the Hermes family traits like lockpicking. But he wasn’t an agent of chaos like the Stoll brothers nor did he particularly steal a lot like some of his other siblings. I couldn’t put my finger on it. When I’d realized he was one of the ones with Thalia it made sense that he’d be a bit reclusive emotionally. But he generally did his own thing, which was swordplay.

I’d seen him practicing outside of the designated arena time for Cabin 11. He went hard, as if trying to make up for something. He also had a chip on his shoulder from three years ago as I’d heard him mutter curses under his breath when he got frustrated. I was hesitant to bring it up with anyone since Chiron had said Thalia’s death was still hard felt. It had only been a couple days but I felt like I trusted Travis and Connor enough to ask. We were practicing in the arena since I was still too afraid to ask Clarisse for help. They knew about as much as me when it came to spears and the energy I had had during my practice with Charity was gone. I fumbled the weapon for the millionth time and dropped it. I watched it roll away as Travis called for a water break. We sat down on a stone bench and drank. It wasn’t particularly hot but you’d be surprised how much of a sweat you can work up being a failure.

“So what’s up with Luke?” I popped the question. Travis and Connor, who sat either side of me, stopped drinking.

“What do you mean?” Travis asked cautiously. I started regretting bringing it up. However, I went against my better instincts and forged ahead.

“Was he with Thalia when she died?” I went in bluntly. Connor choked on his water. I decided to elaborate. “He seems like he’s off and I’ve seen him acting like he has something to prove. Plus he mentioned her so...” I trailed off as I lost confidence. The Stoll brothers looked at each other over me. They seemed to carry on a silent conversation before Travis answered.

“Uh, yeah, but be careful with bringing that up,” he said.

“I know, Chiron mentioned it. But still, I wanna confirm it in my head,” I said.

“Well yeah he was there,” Travis said. “Him and Annabeth, the blonde girl from Athena’s cabin. Thalia was like their leader. From what I heard it was Luke and Thalia for a while before they found Annabeth. They travelled all over but something happened on their way to camp and Thalia sacrificed herself while Luke and Annabeth escaped.”

“Ever since Luke has been trying to… well like you said, prove something,” Connor added. He took a swig of water from a bottle before he slapped his knees and stood. “But enough on that, let’s get some more practice in before supper and CTF.” He grinned. I let it go, satisfied, and got back to fumbling my way around a spear. I’d probably have paid more attention but my mind was on Luke and how he must feel. Call me sympathetic.  
We finished practice in time for dinner. It was there that the teams were revealed for Capture the Flag. For our side: Ares, Hermes, Hephaestus, and Dionysus. For the enemy: Athena, Apollo, Demeter, and Aphrodite. Once the teams were announced I wondered how good the enemy team would be. From what I could gather we had a lot of force with our cabins and sheer numbers from Hermes.

“Don’t underestimate Athena,” Connor said as we finished eating, as if reading my mind. “Like we got the big guns, but the Athena cabin knows how to properly use theirs.” Before he could elaborate everyone got up and went to go arm themselves. The Hermes cabin got up to follow and we started assembling outside the cabins. Travis and Connor handed me armor and waited a solid minute before they remembered that I’d never put on armor. A quick tutorial showed me that it was actually fairly easy. It fit loosely on me but the brothers said I’d grow into it. Once I had a helmet on they handed me a heavy shield and a sharp spear.

“Are you guys sure about this?” I asked, holding the spear out.

“Just hide behind the shield and poke,” Travis said. “Worst case scenario they bulldoze over you and you get a couple scrapes.” 

“Yeah, no pressure,” Connor added. “By the way you'll be on the front line with Charity and a few others.” He pointed over to a group of about five other campers, Charity among them. Connor nudged me and smiled. “See, told you we’d get you a spot with her.” I think the helmet covered my face enough that they couldn’t see it turn red. It only occurred to me later to ask how they’d orchestrated it. At the time I was still wrestling with what I had come to terms with which was an awkward crush on Charity. I joined up with her and the other group Connor had called the front line. Charity was the first to notice me with a friendly smile. She held her helmet under her arm, her shield on her back. There was a breeze that made the right side of her hair flow gently.

“Hey there cupcake,” she greeted.

“Uh hi,” I said. “Also I’m not a cupcake.”

“Well not literally,” was all she answered with. She changed the subject by asking, “so you’re with the wall?”

“The what?” I asked. She rolled her eyes quickly. Not good.

“The front line of shields. A phalanx of sorts,” she elaborated.

“Oh right. Yeah. Yes. That. I am, uh… with you guys.” Smooth. Charity was about to say something when everyone started congregating in the woods. The cabins that comprised the other team went to the other side of Chiron who stood at the entrance.

“All right,” he said after the commotion had calmed down. “The win condition is one team getting the other’s flag. The creek serves as the boundary. Magic weapons are allowed. No maiming or killing is allowed. I will be ready to serve as a medic in case an emergency crops up. Arm yourselves, go to your positions, and remember to have fun!” A cheer went up as the sides went into the woods. I stuck to Charity, not knowing the other members of the wall. I was shown that the flag was gonna be near a pile of boulders called Zeus’s Fist before we made our way over to the creek where Luke informed us we were to push into the other side and keep them busy so that the other fighters could get their licks in before others ran to get the flag. He made it simple for me, mostly, which I appreciated. Once he left to go coordinate other campers I was left alone with the group of shielders. The other guys made small talk with each other leaving me and Charity to stand there awkward since she probably felt forced to interact with me since she saved my life and my crush made it rough to talk to her.

“You get any better with that spear?” she asked out of the blue. I got startled at the question.

“What? Oh,” I looked down at the polearm. “Uh no. I don’t know what was up when we practiced but now I can barely swing it.” I hefted it, standing it up on its base. “All I can do is poke people with it, and I can’t even do that well.” Charity gave a small chuckle. More like a ‘hmph’ than a chuckle.

“Well thankfully our job is to stand still and not let others pass if we can help it. So just hold your shield up, look over the right corner, and poke. Try not to hit the skin, just press them. The fighters will do the rest. Maybe ask Clarisse for lessons,” she said. I sighed.

“I think she knows that I’m friends with Travis and Connor so she’ll probably beat me up if I try.” Another ‘hmph’ chuckle from Charity.

“Ah, she’ll cool down. Eventually. Couple years if you’re lucky.” Suddenly a horn blew and the other members of the phalanx got their weapons out. Charity pulled her sword and shield. “Time’s up, let’s fight,” she said. I ran to catch up with her and the others, the armour not making it an easy task. Once I was caught up I saw that the others had locked shields so I did so, right beside Charity since there was no other space. Or rather there was space, I wasn’t paying attention since my mind was occupied with both not dying and not embarrassing myself in front of her. Someone behind us yelled and the front line advanced, weapons poking through the small shield wall. We walked up to the creek when we heard noise. We stopped walking and held our shields up as we watched some very pretty people walk up to the river chatting. They sat beside each other not too far away. 

“Who…” I started.

“Aphrodite’s kids. They don’t fight often, mostly spend the game chatting and staring at themselves,” Charity whispered. “But they’re way too close by. If they get hurt accidentally-” she didn’t have time to finish when an arrow sailed towards her. Instincts took over and she bashed the arrow away with her shield before locking it back in. “Ambush!” She said as more arrows sailed towards us. With our shields up we managed to block the first volley. They thudded against our shields, landing in the dirt. I thought it was over when another volley was launched. We held our ground as the arrows hit but then I was tackled from the side. A shield bashed into me and I went sideways, toppling the phalanx. Cheers went up from both sides as they engaged each other. Above me was an armoured camper who had their sword raised. Time slowed down as he swung. I raised my shield arm and swung it to meet the sword. They clashed and I rolled with the momentum, coming to a stand with spear and shield ready. The other camper had no shield, but he had way more experience than me. He stepped towards me and I thrust out on instinct. He jumped back. I held my shield up and we circled each other as combat ensued around us. I took the initiative and thrust my spear at him. The guy brought his blade up and blocked the thrust, keeping the spear point angled on his hilt. Then he rushed me, keeping the spear shaft on his sword. I tried to back up, but I could only raise my shield as he shoulder checked me. I stumbled back from the blow (quick tutorial kids: don’t lock your knees in a fight, keep ‘em bent so you can absorb force or a push or shove). I dropped my spear in the process. The guy swung his sword and I bashed it away with my shield, reaching down to scoop up my spear and held the point at him. Then he laughed.

“Not much of a spear,” he said. I looked down. I was holding it backwards. The spear tip was pointed at my chest and the bottom of the shaft was pointed harmlessly at him. He charged me while I was still computing the issue. I blocked it but stumbled again. He swung and I blocked that too, but the force hit hard and my forearm hurt like hell. Gritting my teeth I swung the spear shaft in a wife arc and hit him on the side of the knee while he was occupied. “Ow,” he said, his attention lapsing. I took advantage and did something unorthodox. I gripped the front end of the spear in two hands like a baseball bat and swung at his head. There was a metallic thunk as it connected and the camper fell to one knee. “OW!” he yelled. He tried to reach at me with his sword arm but I whacked it and then kicked him in the chest. He fell back and didn’t try to get up.

I was about to say some witty one liner, if I’d been given about ten minutes to come up with one, when cheers on the other team went up. I looked up at the creek and watched a small camper run across the creek with our flag. Once she crossed the fabric shimmered and it changed from a red flag with a boar’s head on it to a lovely silver flag with an owl on it. On the ground the camper I had incapacitated laughed.  
“Good job jackass,” he said. That was rude. I was about to whack his leg when I got bodied by someone else and was left to eat dirt and leaves as I face planted. It was a miracle, in that instant, that I didn’t impale myself. Instead the spear went flying as the camper who had tackled me helped his friend up and they walked away. I propped myself up on my elbows and spat out dirt. Blood . Great. I get bodied out of formation, then tackled after we lost, and now I face planted into a bloody nose. Two feet stopped in front of me and offered a hand. I grabbed it and let myself be helped up until I was standing and looking at

“Travis?” I asked. He took off his helmet. It was Connor.

“Travis is busy with something,” he said. “I saw that fight, by the way. Nice moves.”

“Thanks,” I said. It felt nice to win something but swinging a spear like that wasn’t my style, I’d concluded. “Who was that?”

“Mark, one of Athena’s,” he answered. “Hate to rain on your parade but he was never a great fighter. Kinda just goes hard and if you do something like whack his leg he crumbles. Needs momentum. Better at planning a fight than he is engaging in one.” Behind me I heard a frustrated growl. I turned to see Clarisse stomping off back to camp.

“What happened with the flag?” I asked. Connor shrugged.

“Athena pulled through, as always. The distraction used on you guys worked to distract us. They sent a group in around the back and one of them grabbed the flag silently without anyone noticing until it was too late.” He looked at me and frowned. “You okay dude, your nose is bleeding.” I touched my face and remembered that blood was slowly trickling down my face. On reflex I blew my nose and flecks of blood spattered on the ground and Connors pants. He gave me a distasteful look. “Dude, gross.”

“Sorry,” I said. Connor and I walked back to the cabin. All the while I thought about how I could approach Clarisse now. Not only was she angry at me for being associated with Travis and Connor, she was now mad that we lost the game.

I was never going to get a chance to learn from her.

\---

I spent the next few days as an anxious mess. 

The weekend was me practicing a bit with Travis and Connor when they had time. Most of their time was either being obscenely patient in training me or trying to give me reassurances that I could actually bite the bullet. At the time I was terrified but only now in retrospect I know that I was overthinking things to the point that I was making the option of asking Clarisse for help so scary that I’d never be able to do it normally.

Other days Doren and I had chats while we walked through the strawberry fields but it was starting to get a bit colder so there weren’t as many growing. He’d gone and gotten me a windbreaker during one of his outings to the regular world. 

“I tell you man, going out after being here a while is weird,” Doren said to me as we perused the berries the following Tuesday. “Like I get used to being at camp after a while and then I go out and it’s like wow I forgot people don’t have to worry about things like gods and monsters.”

“I haven’t even thought about that stuff,” I admitted. Then I realized that the foster family I had left was probably dealing with a lot right now. I wondered if they declared me missing.

“Don’t sweat it,” Doren said suddenly. I turned to him and he grinned. “Come on I know you’re thinking about the foster family. Trust me, they’re fine. I asked Chiron if he could do a check up and he said things are fine for them. He also made a couple calls and everyone’s forgotten about you so nothing’s wrong there.” I must have looked sad because he rushed to reassure me. “Hey, you’re home now man. You’re among friends here. You’ll be a great hero and make your mark on the world. And I’ll just be a satyr doing his job as a protector and eventual searcher.”

“Thanks. How’s that coming along, by the by?” I asked. Doren sighed. He’d explained the idea of becoming a searcher for the god Pan to me before.

“The council decided that while I did a good job bringing you here there were a couple hiccups like you getting injured by the hellhound and being saved by Charity,” he said. He made a waving gesture at the forest. “Not to mention you’re unclaimed so far so that’s not helping my case. They’re being tough with their scores.”

“They sound dumb for not giving it to you now, I mean you’ve done such a great job,” I said. Doren stopped me.

“Hey man, be careful. Yeah I might disagree with them but they’re still Lords of the Wild. Gotta respect them. I’ll get my license when I’m good and ready,” he threw his arm around me. “For now I’m just taking it easy and making good friends like you. After all, what's the point in going fast? You get there and then what? You win, good job, gold star.” Doren took his arm off and slid his hands in his hoodie pocket. “Besides as much as I’d like to be a searcher I’d like to, you know, enjoy living with the mortality rate of the job.”

“Yeah I’d rather not lose you,” I said. Doren smiled and returned to walking. I kept up with him. The days passed and I found myself getting into the routine of practices and activities. It had only been a couple weeks but I noticed that I might have actually been filling out a bit. Or maybe that was my hopeful imagination.

The catalyst for me finally getting over myself came when I was the volunteer for another practice a day later. Luke was showing off some moves and asked for someone to help. No one volunteered but I got shoved forward so Luke took it as writ that I was the guy for the job. For some reason I was determined to properly try. I grabbed a spear and readied it as Luke explained the moves. It was a disarming technique. He showed it in slow motion on me since he said that disarming a spear was as important as disarming a sword. He showed the move in slow motion before allowing me to go at him full stop. Whoever disarmed the other first won.

It was a disaster.

I stepped forward with a thrust that I intended to use as a way to get him to block so I could force his sword out of his hand. Instead Luke used the thrust as a way to get his sword on the shaft and pushed it aside as he rushed me. I flinched and dropped the spear. He stopped and backed up.

“You good?” he asked. I picked up the spear as the other campers giggled.

“I’m fine, let’s try again,” I said. This time I tried for a swing from below. Luke expertly blocked my strike, twisted the weapon to the side, grabbed with his left hand, and pulled it away. Admiration for Luke’s skill was prominent, but so were some more giggles. I felt my face growing hot. I told Luke I wanted to go again. We did. This time I tried a side sweep at his legs. He jumped back and right as I thought I might have an opening he just as quickly rushed in. He blocked my return swipe and forced the weapon down, using his foot to stomp it out of my hands. Unfortunately I went down with it. A few more attempts as I fell and stumbled more and more. Whatever had come over me during practice against Charity had vanished. I was a fool in a teen’s shoes. Those ideas I’d had about being an unstoppable force dissipated.

I’d fallen for about the tenth time when Luke called for a break. I got up, hearing some whispered remarks followed by chuckles and giggling. Spite started growing and wrapping its tendrils around my head. They kept growing as Travis and Connor sat beside me and tried giving me condolences, like how Luke could go a bit easy on me or how he should have stopped after a couple times. My head wasn’t in it. I was busy wallowing in a pit, wanting to not be the butt of any more jokes. Luke called the break over and showed more practice with swords. When the guy he was practicing with failed he got a couple chuckles bust mostly “oooh” and “ouch”. That just made me even more irritated.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of irritation. I walked around camp irritated, ate dinner irritated, went to the campfire irritated, and went to bed irritated. It comes as no surprise that I woke up and did my morning routine while irritated. I kept it burning until the afternoon, which I had blissfully free and so did Clarisse. Travis had been kind enough to tell me that she had some free time during the afternoon and that she was usually in the arena. Sure enough she was impaling straw dummies on her spear. They were set up in a line and each one was hacked to death up to about the halfway point. The one she was currently on she thrust the spear through the chest before pulling out her sword and rushing to decapitate it. The straw head fell to the ground and Clarisse turned and noticed me. Her eyes narrowed as she glared.

“What do you want punk?” she asked. Suddenly the irritation I was trying to craft into confidence wavered and I didn’t say anything. I just stared. Clarisse frowned, then turned to go back to her practice. “Look punk if those stupid brothers sent you to play a prank on me, tell em to piss off,” she growled. “I don’t want to have to deal with stupid little-”

“Teach me how to fight,” I said suddenly. Clarisse turned back to me. Her expression was livid.

“Look punk, I told you that I don’t give a-” she started but I wanted to defuse the situation before she killed me.

“Look what Travis and Connor did was stupid, I wasn’t a part of it,” I said. The brothers gave me full license to throw them under the bus, to a limit. Travis said if I stopped hanging out with them he’d be disappointed. “Look I saw you fight and it was really good and I thought you could teach me since I really really…” I swallowed my pride and said it. “I suck.” I knew it but having to say it was hard. “Also I really do like using spears and I was told you were the best person to learn from.” Then I remembered the one detail Travis and Connor shared. “It was Chris who said it.” The got her attention.

“Chris?” she asked. “Rodriguez?” I’d never heard his last name or even talked to him, but I nodded.

“Yeah he said if I wanted to learn how to use a spear I should talk to you since you’re the best he’s seen. That and you could teach me even more.” I prayed to whatever god would listen that she didn’t see through my trick. Clarisse walked up to me. She was a solid head taller than me so she looked down at me. On instinct I kept going. “Also I’m sorry about Capture the Flag, I didn’t realise that Athena would get past.”

“You’re pretty scrawny but you just got here so that can be fixed,” she said. She looked at my face and raised an eyebrow. “You were on the front with Charity right?” she asked. I nodded. “Then losing wasn’t your fault or your problem,” she said. “Someone in the back near the flag messed up. Look, I’m still suspicious but you sound real.” I nodded.

“I am completely serious. I want you to teach me everything you know,” I said. Clarisse considered me for a little bit longer before she sighed.

“All right,” she said. “Meet me in the arena on Saturday afternoon, I can get a feel for how good you are then. Right now relax and get ready for Friday’s game, we’re gonna win it this time.” She turned and went back to the arena center. I took that as my cue to leave. I made it back to the cabin where Travis and Connor were none too subtle about hanging around my spot on the floor. They jumped when I showed up in the cabin.

“Hey, how’d it go?” Travis asked. I took a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh.

“She said she’d teach me,” I reported. The Stoll brothers walked up to me and gave me back pats and Connor threw his arm around my shoulder.

“That’s our guy,” he said. “Soon you’ll be one of the fiercest warriors at this camp. Trust me.” He and Travis laughed and were good natured about it. I was just happy, and more than a little exhausted.

I had a teacher.


	6. Clarisse Beats Me Up (But not because she's mad at me... I think)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jeremiah gets his ass kicked by Clarisse. In a good way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the probably 1-2 people that follow this fic regularly, you might be wondering "hey what gives? Why the break for 2 months?" A few things, some personal that I don't wanna necessarily get into right now. And also big horny took my brain over for the past few fics. Hopefully now I can get into a nice routine. Also I hope you enjoy this chapter, it's not my longest but I felt that, after a rewrite, it encompassed what I wanted to do. Let me get some more dynamic fighting in, and then start of some character progression, which I intend to tackle in the next chapter. I want to see if I can strike a balance between the shounen-esque fighting progression and the more necessary character interaction/progression. Also Rich text is a LOT better for me than HTML so I'll go with that from here on.

Prospective reader (I’m going back because future reader didn’t sit well with me) it was at this point in my life so shortly into my time at Camp Half-Blood that things were starting to go my way specifically. Sure I mean I was, you know, alive thanks to Charity and now among people who I shared a positive, if ambiguous, connection to. I’d even made friends with Travis and Connor and Doren continued to be my friend albeit from a distance since he was, at the time this took place, out on a protector job. But Clarisse teaching me how to fight and not be complete dead weight was the best thing. It started on the following Saturday.

‘But Jeremiah, what about Capture the Flag’ I hear you asking. I regret to inform you, reader, that that particular Capture the Flag was not good for me. Same lineup of cabin teams but the events played out quite differently, mostly for me. Ares won the flag thanks to Luke and some quick thinking on his part, along with the Stoll brothers pulling some sneaky pranks beforehand. I, on the other hand, didn’t do so well. I was a part of the front line. We marched forward, I heard a noise, looked up, and got a blunt arrowhead to the forehead. Thankfully my head wasn’t cracked open but I was out for the game. Charity and one of the other front liners managed to drag me out of harm's way as the battle ensued. I got to wake up being dragged from the shoulders of the Stoll brothers halfway back to the cabin where I passed out.

That concludes the casting of my grand failure. I hope you enjoyed it.

Blunders aside, the main focus of my mind was on meeting Clarisse and hoping she didn’t see me as a lost cause. That night it was difficult for me to sleep due to nerves and recurring nightmares. I’d wake up every few hours in a sweat, turn over, and try to relax before going back to sleep. My dreams kept going to scenes of people dying or to confusing segments from what I presume was my mother’s life. The dreams of death weren’t always gruesome in the gore sense. But I kept finding myself standing on a gallows as a man was hanged, right by a Revolutionary soldier as he got gunned down off his horse, some poor person being cornered in an alley. I didn’t always see the act itself, but I was beginning to wonder if something was wrong with me. I’d never had these kinds of dreams before I’d gotten to camp.

Anything to deal with my mother was more confusing and frustrating than anything. I’d get snatches of conversations, places she’d been, but they were all fleeting. It seems those initial dreams were the only ones to stick since my image of her hadn’t changed from the obituary. A misanthrope who never had any real goals in life, met my father, died while having me. I’d decided to try and work on thinking about other things. But I’m sure you can imagine, reader, how frustrating it is to have information right there only to have it snatched away from you. I was left with a feeling of emptiness when I woke up to a generally laid back day at camp. According to Travis activities in the organized sense calmed down about mid November (about the time I was being trained by Clarisse, which means that was probably a reason she took me on as a pupil), leading to a lot of self-regulation that most campers actually took part in.

Now was about as good a time as any to start establishing that discipline.

I got out of my sleeping bag, brushed my teeth, did the bathroom trip, got dressed, and made my way down to the practice arena. On the way there I enjoyed the sight of the trees turning all sorts of vibrant colors. Due to the fact I’d moved around a lot I never got to sit and really appreciate fall when I was dealing with trying to fit in at a new school. I took a deep, reverent breath as I walked up to the arena and saw Clarisse there. She was dragging a dummy out of a hut and placing it beside an identical one. On one of the bench seats lay a spear and a backpack. I got to the arena floor as Clarisse finished setting the dummy up. When she looked at me I stopped and the smile I had melted. Her glare was terrifying. The morning sun was behind her so it helped to create shadows in the contours of her face. She frowned.

“What are you scared of?” she asked.

“Oh!” I started. “Uh, nothing. Sorry, you spooked me.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. That’s probably why.” She turned.

“Bad dreams?” I asked, since I’d had my own. She returned her glare to me and I was pinned to the spot.

“None of your business punk,” she said. She grabbed the spear lying on the bench and tossed it at me. Not the spear point first, I should specify, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this. I caught it and saw Clarisse grabbing her own spear. She stood opposite me, hefting her weapon. “All right, I’m just gonna let you attack me with all you got,” she said. “I won’t counter attack or disarm you, just attack me and I’ll block. Sound good?”

“Oh, sure,” I said. Of course, she’d want to get a feel for how awful I am at fighting. Clarisse held her spear sideways at me. I pointed mine at her. I took a couple deep breaths, thinking about what I wanted to do, and struck. I charged in with a stab. She blocked easily, knocking the spear tip to the side. I swiped to the side. Blocked and it jarred me. I lost my momentum and my next swing was off. Clarisse barely moved the spear to knock my blow away. Swipe, block, stab, block, repeat ad nauseum. Every time I tried to fancy up my moves, like doing a swipe into a stab, it got blocked even harder (somehow) and stopped my momentum. We kept this up for hours. Clarisse was as stoic as a statue as I tried in vain to attack her successfully.

Clarisse had insane stamina, I’d thought at the time. Now I realise she wasn’t expanding nearly half the energy I was. I was really feeling the exhaustion by the hour mark. I kept it up for another couple but it got pathetic. It took every ounce of energy to swing at a decent speed that Clairsse blocked. Sweat drenched my Camp Half-Blood shirt and flew off of me as I swung. My arms and legs felt like they had been filled with lead. Every swing made them burn. But I kept at her until she blocked a particularly weak swing and I fell back, the spear clattering out of my hand and onto the arena floor. I feel the sweat running down every part of my body and collecting on the arena floor. Clarisse stood over me.

“You bring water?” she asked. I shook my head and she dropped a heavy bottle on my chest. “Keep that bottle, I had a spare. Dehydration is as big a killer as any weapon so drink and take a break.” She walked off, probably to the bench to sit, while I lay on the floor. The bottle had one of those in built flip straws so I opened it and let it pour into my mouth. I think I spent like twenty minutes just laying there and drinking water as I recuperated. I had no idea what Clarisse was doing, I was just focusing on how crap and tired I was. I felt so exhausted and thought that maybe I shouldn’t have gone as all in as I did. I mean it might have been useful to a degree but maybe I should have conserved better. Hindsight’s always 20/20 they say. I started experimentally moving my arms and found that they felt like rubber now more than lead. Not great but I felt like I could at least do something.

I pulled the bottle off my chest and set it beside me as I sat up. My torso wasn’t happy but I made it comply along with my legs. I stood and stretched. That helped to work out some of the kinks. I slowly made my way over to Clarisse. She looked up at me as I stood in front of her.

“Well?” I asked.

“What?” she said.

“How bad is it?” I asked. Clarisse looked to the side for a second to think.

“You suck,” she said frankly. Then she took another drink of water.

“That’s it?”

“Well yeah. You suck but I know what you’re trying to do. I’ll see if I can help,” she said. She stood up and walked over to the dummy farthest away. I followed. “All right, here’s what you’re trying to do,” she said. She swung the spear down, cutting a line in the dummy and then stabbed it. “You’re using momentum which is rough for beginners. Even I’m not good at that sort of thing, since you can see how slow it was. What you wanna do right now is take that idea and shorten it. For example,” she did a much shorter swipe into a quick stab. It was right on the heart of the dummy, or rather where the heart would be. “For combat momentum you wanna use it more to recover from a staggering blow or deflection and not for offense unless you’re really good.” She demonstrated again with a move I’d used. She swung the spear up, let it rotate in her open palm once it reached the apex of the swing, then went in for a stab. It looked cool. Clarisse shook her head. “See? Way too slow in combat. Flows well but it’s slow. Here’s what I’d do.” She quickly swung up, then down, then stabbed. More efficient but I thought the other one looked cooler.

“Well…” I trailed off. Clarisse looked me in the eye.

“You’re ignoring me,” she said.

“What?” I asked.

“I know that look. You just wanna look cool,” she said. I looked away, ashamed.

“Sorry,” I said. She sighed.

“Look I’m not gonna be the one to say ‘no don’t ever do this’ but I’ll say that it’ll take you a lot of practice time,” she said. “I’d say something like show me you’re willing to practice but that’s not enough.” She turned to me, holding her spear at her side. “Listen punk, I wanna see you practicing out here for a week and I mean consistently, every day. If I can see you do that, then I’ll do what I can to help. Prove to me you’re willing.” The look she had was intense. It was daring. She was urging me to back down and just say I wanted to cool moves because it felt good. I clenched my fists, gritted my teeth, and met her gaze.

“I’ll do it,” I said with as much conviction as I could muster. Clarisse frowned. But she didn’t shout me out of the arena.

“Fine,” she stated. “Then before the day is over I’ll actually spar with you and show you how much I can kick your ass.”

She did. The next couple of hours I got beat down without much mercy. She didn’t stab me but she got close. A lot. I tried maneuvers I’d never even thought about, tried simple moves, tried cool gaming moves, nothing got through her. Instead she whacked me everywhere. My legs were in pain from moving around and from the back end of her spear. The rest of me hurt from various hits and from Clarisse knocking my legs out from under me multiple times. By the time dinner came around I was back on the floor, sucking water, as sweat poured off of me. The dinner horn sounded but I didn’t have the strength right away to get up. Clarisse walked past me and stopped.

“I’ll meet you here tomorrow morning for more practice. Prepare to get your ass kicked,” she said. Then she walked off and I lay there for several more minutes processing this. I was guaranteed at least one more training session with Clarisse. Well I was already doing some practice with Travis and Connor, but it wasn’t anything too serious since those two never took anything seriously if it wasn’t a prank. I reached out and grabbed the spear with my right arm, stiff as it was, and tried to sit up. My entire torso vetoed the action and I flopped back on the floor. I rolled over and got on all fours. That worked out better. I got up and slowly staggered my way over to the shed and stored the spear there. By that point I had gotten my footing back and I was able to walk to the pavilion. On the way I thought about a schedule I could stick to. Something about going with the schedule of activities of the cabin, etc. With winter on the horizon I’d have more free time.

Then my brain decided it didn’t want to think and I had to focus on climbing the steps of the pavilion right as the end of the Hermes cabin was entering. I didn’t care that I was almost late, I just wanted food. Fast forwarding past all the necessities I realized that I was obscenely hungry and I inhaled my food, much to the surprise of the Stoll brothers. I’d gone several minutes without speaking, only eating as much as I could while chugging water from my cup. Eventually I slammed my cup down and took a breath while the brothers stared at me.

“Good practice?” Travis said after a pregnant moment. I noticed he and Connor were eyeing the bruises now forming on my arms. I nodded.

“Yeah,” I breathed. “I got beat up badly.”

“We can see that,” Connor said. “I just hope that it wasn’t-”

“It was fine,” I said. I probably cut him off too quickly because they looked at each other. I shook my head. “Look it started off with me trying to hit her once. After I exhausted myself we had a break and then we actually sparred. She beat the hell out of me and she wants me to practice on my own to show I’m willing to stick to it. Then she’ll help me more.” I took a breath. “So while I know you guys are kind of busy, I was hoping you could help me out a bit more and practice.” I looked to them for an answer as they had a silent conversation. After a minute they met my eyes.

“Sure, we’ll give you a hand,” said Travis.

“Just don’t expect us to go so hard, man,” said Connor. “Last thing I want to do is beat you senseless.”

“I’m gonna need you guys to step up a bit at least,” I insisted. “I need to actually learn some stuff and practice techniques on you guys. I don’t wanna be bruised to hell and back every day but I definitely want to go hard.” The brothers shrugged.

“All right,” they said together. I smiled wide. I got a massive giddy feeling in my chest. I was on the road to something great.


	7. An Important Handshake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeremiah get's an interview with Chiron and decides to become assertive. For once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, hello, it me. The man who writes mildly popular porn that no one talks about. I spent a while on this one, I can tell you that. Less for revisions (which I need to go back and do a few) and more because of complications with travelling and some minor blocks in thinking. What I need to do is sit down one night and plan out farther ahead than 1-2 chapters. I have an upcoming arc that I need to flash out in my head. This chapter is also mostly dialogue focused since I wanted to try my hand at writing dialogue that isn't trash and yet I still think I failed. I have no idea, but I try to keep things on as much a believable level of fake as I can. But it's a tough line to toe. Also I need to not rely on actions scenes so much. Use them more sparingly. Hopefully I can improve some more next chapter. I don't wanna be *too* stringent on myself since this is just a fanfic but I also don't want to just publish barely passable trash. I wanna use this as a tool to help me improve. Thanks to those few who are reading this, helps me push forward.

Prospective reader, if I may spoil part of my journey, this was the point where I began to master the spear. At time of writing I’m what Chiron has called quite proficient. I’m still on that path. Slowly but surely. At any rate once I started practicing on my own I started to develop patterns and routines. November started to fade into December and snow began to make itself known. With schedules opening up as winter came Travis and Connor started helping me out more. Things started falling into place, the beginnings of routines were beginning to settle into my mind and body. Instead of feeling awkward weapons started feeling natural in my hands. As Connor and Travis got more intense my brain started clicking in the right parts. ADHD began to take over in combat scenarios and I started improving. The next couple CTF games I even was able to mostly hold my own in a fight and not spend it knocked out.

I also got better at trying to make small talk with Charity but it was still baby steps. I had moved on from stammering at her to actually asking how things were going, which resulted in the usual answer of ‘fine’ from her but that was enough for me. At the time I was anxious. A fast crush on Charity and a general close proximity to her meant I never felt the time to recover. I wound up bouncing between the two moods of either practicing or having my heart race while I was near her.

However the next interesting thing that happened was one early December morning. It was a Saturday and I left the Hermes cabin, buttoning up my windbreaker (a jacket Travis said he stole for me, but I didn’t believe him at the time) as I did when I saw Luke heading to the cabin. He seemed to remain adamant that wearing a coat was for wusses because he still sported his camp t-shirt and shorts. He caught my eye and nodded at me as he approached.

“Oh, hey Jeremiah,” he said. “I just got back from the Big House, Chiron wanted to see you.” I stood still. My heart stopped. My eyes went wide. A thousand different worst case scenarios stampeded through my brain at a million miles an hour. Was I being kicked out? If so was it because I wasn’t claimed? That made no sense. Or did it? It was then that I heard snapping and my eyes refocused. “Dude, you good?” Luke asked. “You spaced out hard there,” he said.

“Sorry, that was just…,” I trailed off. “Scary.” Luke’s mouth made an O shape.

“Oh, no, you’re not in trouble or anything, put that out of your head,” he said. “Chiron just wants to check up on you and things have been slow.” Luke leaned in and used a hand to block his mouth, but no one was around. “Truthfully I think he’s kind of bored so he’s just doing some basic work to keep busy,” he whispered. He stood straight and smiled. “I’m gonna get some of the lazy bones up and get them moving, last thing they need is rust gathering.” He gave me a warm shoulder pat and walked into the cabin, yelling at some of the sleepier campers to get up. As he took care of that chore, I made my way to the Big House. Intimidating as it was, I swallowed my anxiety and walked in. The inside was very cozy. The entryway was toned with red wallpaper and shaggy brown carpet. I scraped my shoes on the mat and walked into the main room which had the same tones to it, but the roaring fireplace and brown leather couches contributed more to the coziness.

“Ah, Mr. Jeremiah,” I heard, startling me out of my admiration of the room. Chiron moved his wheelchair into the room from a hallway. In one hand was a steaming mug, but there was already a travel mug in the cupholder on the same armrest. He smiled warmly. “Feel free to take off your shoes and have a seat by the fire,” he said. I tentatively took off my shoes and jacket, hanging the latter up on a hook, before taking a seat on one of the big couches. I sat down and quickly sank into its soft cushions. Chiron wheeled up to me and handed me the steaming mug. I gingerly took it by the handle and saw that it was hot chocolate, topped with whipped cream and a single marshmallow.

“Thanks,” I said. Chiron simply smiled and leaned back in his wheelchair as I sipped at the drink.

“I’m sure you’re curious as to why I asked for you,” he said.

“How much trouble am I in?” I interrupted. Chiron paused and gave me a perplexed look.

“Trouble? Oh, no, no, no,” he said with a small chuckle. “I’m afraid that Luke was correct, I simply did want to sit you down and ask you some questions about how you’re doing.” My heart started to slow down at that. Okay I wasn’t in trouble. “And in that regard, if I were to dole out discipline that required you here, I’d have had Mr. D with me,” Chiron added. I looked around, noticing the absence of the wine god.

“Where is he?” I asked. Chiron waved a hand. 

“Off doing a minor task for Zeus, I’m sure he’ll be back this afternoon,” he said. That made sense. “But Mr. D is not the subject of today’s conversation, I want to ask about you.” Chiron looked me in the eyes. I could see his age in them.

“What about me?” I asked. It felt weird that Chiron was singling me out as someone to talk to.

“Well first off, how do you feel at camp? Do you feel you’re adjusting to your new life?” he asked. I thought about it for a minute.

“I think so? I’ve made friends with the Stoll brothers, Luke’s a nice guy as a counsellor, and Clarisse is gonna help me out,” I said. It wasn’t until I had said it that it really sank in. Travis and Connor had basically adopted me into the Hermes cabin as their friend even though I was unclaimed. They helped me out, got me things, and were the first to really be outwardly nice to me. “All that said, it all feels so….” I trailed off.

“Surreal?” Chiron offered.

“I think?” I said. Chiron’s smile reassured me.

“Oh I’m sure it is. After all you spent most of your life among normal mortals experiencing a normal life, or what was normal for you, so suddenly being dragged into the life of Greek mythology must be quite jarring,” he said. “However you’ve adapted quite well, developing your own routine, making fast friends in the Hermes cabin, and being quite active in Capture the Flag. It’s impressive.” I looked down at my feet.

“I’ve had practice at that,” I said. I heard Chiron give a sympathetic sigh.

“Yes, I’m aware of your foster home background,” he said. “Which is also why I’m glad you’ve made friends with some of the other campers.” I looked up at him and he was the same as before. Warm eyes and smile. “I suppose I’ll ask another question, what’s your opinion of Charity Davlin?” Suddenly his friendly look was a bit more mischievous. Heat krept up from my chest and into my face as it became very apparent what I thought about her. Also I had just learned her last name.

“Uh,” was all I could say.

“No need to answer,” Chiron said. “I suppose I should ask, however, what is it about her that’s garnered your attention?” I looked down. My grip on the mug tightened as I took another sip. I was hoping it would distract me a bit but it wasn’t. Suddenly my mind was entirely on Charity and how vapid my attraction to her was.

“Well, uh, she’s…” I swallowed. “She’s really really pretty and she’s strong and smart and… she saved my life,” I braced myself. Even I knew that liking someone like that just for saving me was basic. Chiron said nothing about it.

“Well for what it’s worth I think you’re a fine young man but that’s up to her ultimately. Perhaps talk to her more,” he said. “Moving on, I should ask about your interactions with Clarisse. She’s been hard to reach by many but you broke through quite easily. How did you accomplish that?” With embarrassment creeping down, I thought back to when I was given the info on her crush on Chris Rodriguez. Perhaps using her feelings to persuade her wouldn’t be the best way to answer that.

“She said something about me being kind of promising, but hopelessly lost,” I lied. “She wanted me to practice more on my own to show I was willing. I did and now she’s starting to help me a bit,” I said. That part was true. Clarisse said she would start drilling me this weekend because she noticed I was keeping up with the practice. Chiron nodded. This was starting to feel like a job interview, at least from what I could gather. I’d never held a job at that point (still haven’t).

“That’s good to know,” he said. “I guess I’ll go ahead and point out the elephant in the room, so to speak, how do you feel about being unclaimed?” I sat there for a minute, thinking about his question. My first gut response would be to say I was fine with it, it wasn’t affecting me and my routines. But the truth was that it bothered me. Every night I lay on my bedroll on the floor of the Hermes cabin wondering who my father was. The only hint I could go by was that my mother was… someone. A mortician, college dropout, drug addict. That was it. It frustrated me to no end. It seeped into my head during my more lonely times whenever I’d been left alone with my thoughts too long. I was only in the Hermes cabin on Hermes’s hospitality, but would that run out? Perhaps eventually. I then wondered about how much of my friendship with Travis and Connor was a part of that hospitality.

“It does,” I said. I took a big finishing swig of the hot chocolate. “I’ve been practicing to not think about it but I can’t help it. I almost wish Mr. D hadn’t given me that folder.” Chiron’s face was still as stone.

“You find it frustrating to have so little information you’d almost prefer to have no information?” he asked. I nodded.

“At least then I could kind of think about it and not take it too seriously. But now I keep wondering what it was about my mother that attracted whatever god decided to have me,” I said. “She doesn’t seem like a nice person. She was just a dropout mortician. That’s it.” I looked up at Chiron and saw him deep in thought. We sat in silence for several minutes, the fire crackling in the fireplace. It never seemed to need wood, I noticed.

“Well,” he said, “if I were a guessing man I’d wager your mother’s occupation would have a factor. It tends to with many of the campers. For example several of Aphrodite’s children had parents in valentines or romance careers. I can point to Silena Beauregard’s father who sells chocolates and attracted the Goddess of Love.” Chiron twiddled with his thumbs. He looked hesitant to continue, as if his next words would have a massive impact. He took a deep breath. “If I were to make a wager, based on her occupation, Hades wouldn’t be a far off guess.” Thunder suddenly was heard in the distance. Chiron looked up at the ceiling and yelled “I’m not saying anything is concrete! I’m merely speculating!” He looked back at me and sighed.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Zeus,” he said. “Hearing that Hades might have broken the pact would reach his ears.” More thunder happened and Chiron glared at the ceiling. “However with the pact in place Hades shouldn’t have children. That’s on top of the fact you simply don’t radiate the same power as children of the Big Three.”

“What?” I asked. “English?”

“The Big Three are the three sons of the Titan Lord,” Chiron said. “Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Back after World War II they pledged to not have children. That pact has only been broken with Thalia’s sireing. However she’s dead now so it hardly matters. As I said you don’t radiate the same power as a child of the Big Three so I highly doubt Hades had anything to do with your birth.” Now I understood, I remembered Doren telling me the story on our trek across the country.

“What about me radiating power?” I asked.

“Children of the gods radiate degrees of power,” Chiron explained. “It varies with each god and is how monsters can smell you, as far as we’re aware. A child of, say, Hades would be markedly more noticeable and stronger than a child of, say, Hermes.” Chiron looked up at the ceiling again and said “no disrespect intended!” No thunder clap this time. “However Doren stated you land in the middle in that regard. You’re about as average a demigod as you can be, as far as we are aware.”

I wasn’t sure how to take that. Of course it meant that I wasn’t at the bottom of the ladder so that meant monsters wouldn’t ignore me. But it also meant my potential was gimped. Or so I thought at the time. I began to wonder if I was even special enough to be claimed by my father. That put a damper on my mood.

“Will I ever be claimed?” I asked. I could hear the spite in my voice.

“Well,” Chiron started. He waited a minute to think. “Eventually you will. I believe so. The gods, while neglectful, do tend to pay attention to their children. Even if it is for selfish reasons. Until then, however, you will stay in the Hermes cabin. There is no limit on that, I can assure you.” Well that was one thing off my chest. I was starting to think this Q and A wasn’t the best idea. “I’m sorry things are getting heavy,” Chiron said. I looked up at him. Was he reading my mind? “It’s somewhat unavoidable. I will say that the Big House and I will always be available if you need someone to talk that’s a third party if you need it.” Chiron’s smile returned and it was hard not to feel comforted by it. Yet the back of my mind was determined to make sure I wasn’t put at ease. In any case I smiled back.

“Thanks. I was worried about being kicked out or something,” I said. Chiron chuckled.

“Oh no, we don’t expel a camper unless we have a good reason,” he said. “Claimed or unclaimed you’ll have a home here, I can tell you that much. You’re a demigod and it’s my life’s work to train you. I’m sure by the time you’re claimed you’ll be a warrior worthy of their praise.” A clock chimed in another room. “Ah,” Chiron said. “I’m afraid that’s all the time I have to talk. Here, I’ll take your mug for you.” I handed it to him. “With winter coming enjoy the free time and get that practice in.” He began to wheel his chair back with the lever and I got up to leave. As I was getting my shoes on he said something else. “And Jeremiah, if you have something to say you should say it.” He gave me a wry smile and wheeled off into another room.

I left the Big House a big mess (ha). While I was assured that I wouldn’t be kicked out my anxiety dug its way into the part of my brain focusing on my parents. Thoughts about my mother, scattered images I had seen in dreams clashed with the convoluted idea of who my father could be. At that moment I decided to go do something familiar: practice. Not like I had much else to do. Sitting and fidgeting wasn’t productive. I made my way down to the practice arena as the grey sky continued to brighten. The sun wasn’t penetrating the cloud cover which was fine with me. I didn’t want to work up a sweat today. As I neared the arena I heard someone grunting as they swung a weapon. Then the  _ snik _ of it cutting into a dummy. Once I reached the edge I saw who it was.

Charity swung her shield arm and bashed the poor dummy on the face before stabbing it squarely in the gut. She pulled her sword out and stood for a second to catch her breath. My eyes wandered from her standing there to the shed where a solitary straw dummy resided. That wasn’t good. I was out of practice materials.

“Hey,” I heard. My eyes snapped back to Charity. She glared at me. More annoyed than angry. “You gonna stand there all day or what do you want?” My heart started hammering in my chest.

“No, I was just gonna get some practice in,” I said. “But there’s one dummy left so I’m starting to think about how I can do that.” Charity squinted her eyes, scrutinizing my words. She looked back at the shed.

“I guess so,” she said. Then she did a flick of her sword before swinging it in a wide arc and decapitating the dummy. “Then we better make new ones.” She sat down on a bench as I walked across the arena. I grabbed the familiar spear from the shed and walked back over to Charity. She looked me up and down. “What?”

“Let’s spar,” I said without thinking. In the seconds Charity spent staring confused at me, my brain realised what I did and tried to yank hard on the reigns. But I was gonna take Chiron’s advice to heart in a different way. If I couldn’t talk to Charity normally then I’d practice it here. Maybe trash talk could lead to actual conversation. She stood up, matching my height. Not that I was super tall.

“What are you up to?” she asked.

“If we’re gonna run out of dummies then I need a way to practice. And you’re here. And I’m a bit frustrated,” I explained. Charity smirked.

“So you wanna beat up a girl to get your anger out?” she jeered me.

“N-no,” I started. Then I swallowed down my hammering heart. “It’s not like that. Dummies are one thing and Clarisse can’t beat me up all the time. Travis and Connor don’t go hard with practice. I figure if anyone would be willing to beat me up it’d be you.” Charity didn’t drop her smirk as I explained myself.

“All right then,” she said. “I’m gonna hit you, get ready.” I hefted my spear and she swung. I blocked with the shaft and swung the tip in a short downward arc. It slid down her shield and Charity brought her sword around for another swing. I raised the end of the spear as quick as I could and blocked with the blunt end. The recoil shook her arm and I swung the tip up. Charity blocked it and stepped back. “Okay,” she said, “you’re not bad now.” She came at me again and I responded.

We kept going for a couple hours sparring back and forth. It was equal at first but my inexperience leaked in and she started disarming me multiple times. We didn’t talk much, we let our moves speak for us. Charity got aggressive, I got defensive. I responded and she closed up. Back and forth we went until we both fell back on our asses on the arena floor panting and tired. I was much more bruised up, but I gave Charity a good whack on the leg or two. The sun lazily made its way across the sky as we sat there. After a few minutes Charity started to reach for her sword but I called a time out.

“Break?” I asked. She started chuckling.

“Oh thank the gods, I thought you were gonna keep going,” she said. “Yeah let’s break.” We sat down on one of the benches and caught our breath. We remained silent for several minutes, just enjoying the sounds of minimal activity around camp as well as the general calm. I looked sidelong at Charity. The shaved side of her hair had grown out a bit, and the long side was now well past her shoulder.

“Your hair is growing,” I said aloud. Charity slowly turned her head to face me. Then I realised I had said it out loud.

“Yyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah,” she said. “Is there a problem?” 

“Oh no, just noticed it. Since you’ve got a nice style,” I tried to save face. One of her eyebrows crept up slowly.

“You’re an awkward one, cupcake,” she said. “Is it because I saved you from that hellhound?” No it was because I had hopelessly fallen for her. But I figured that was a bit too honest.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve never had someone save me like that and it’s kind of weird. Like I don’t know if I’m supposed to, like, revere you or be your friend or what.” I sighed. “It’s all so confusing.”

“Well maybe try the friend thing,” she said. “I don’t want someone looking up to me like that. I don’t deserve it.”

“What?” I asked. Charity let out a breath through her nose.

“Look I almost choked that day,” she said. “When I saw the hellhound on you I froze. I’d never seen something like that and I couldn’t move. I saw one of my siblings miss and I figured it was worth a shot. I threw and by some fluke it landed right in that thing’s maw. Now you’re acting weird around me and I don’t know what to think.” She looked down at her feet. “That’s what happened that day. In case you have that idea. It was a fluke I saved you. Nothing else.”

“So… you regret it?” I said without thinking. Charity jerked her head up.

“What? No, it’s just…” she looked down again. “I just don’t think I deserved to be the one who did something that heroic. Even by accident. It would have been better if someone else had since now I can’t help but keep thinking about if I had missed too. So I act a bit friendly and it’s weird and I hate dealing with it.” That feeling I felt all too well.

“Well, if it’s any consolation,” I said, “I know what it’s like to succeed and second guess myself. Like one time I almost dropped a glass and grabbed it at the last second. I felt good but then I started thinking about if I had missed and it broke. I’d have been in big trouble.” I looked to Charity who was looking about as awkward as I felt. She slapped her knees and stood.

“All right, this is getting weird, I’m gonna head out,” she said. She took a step before I jumped up.

“Charity wait,” I said. She stopped and turned. I swallowed and steeled myself. Time to act before I could question it. I extended a hand out towards her. She looked from it to my face questioningly. “Hi Charity, I’m Jeremiah Garron, you saved my life and I thank you for it. I want to be your friend in spite of that.” I put all my focus into keeping my arm steady. “I think you’re a cool person and sparring with you is fun. Let’s be friends.” I met her eyes and maintained contact. While Charity had her own insecurities I needed to get over myself and take the first step otherwise she’d push herself away. I had to throw her a line to be her friend. Maybe it’d go further, maybe it wouldn’t. But sparring under the umbrella of Chiron’s advice was giving me the courage to just do it. Right now I wanted to be her friend, crush be damned.

She reached forward and grabbed my hand. It was tight and I recoiled a bit in pain.

“Oop, sorry,” she said. We clasped hands again. “I’m Charity Davlin, good to meet you.” She didn’t shake my hand, just held it. She seemed like she was working up the courage to say what she wanted. She took a deep breath and said “I’d like to be your friend too.” I smiled and shook, she shook back. Her smile was more restrained. This was unfamiliar to her. That was fine. I let go and took my own big deep breath.

“Good. Now that that’s settled, lunch should be starting soon,” I said. Just as I said it a conch horn blew. I heard more activity as campers got into line for lunch. “I can help you put stuff away really quick though.” Charity shrugged.

“Sure, I’ll do the heavy lifting.” She hefted the dummy remains under one arm and walked to the shed as I followed with my spear. We put stuff away and headed to our respective cabin lines. Throughout the rest of the day I felt obscenely giddy.

I’d made another friend.


	8. Tis the Season

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeremiah enjoys winter and the company of Charity before heading to Olympus for the camp field trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took way too long and I'm not quite happy with it. I also don't know why it's like over 5K words but whatever. I do enjoy some aspects of it but I'm really just glad to be done and to start working on something more concrete with this: that being a quest. Maybe another chapter of establishment before that though. I'll have to think about it. Also we hit 51 views which is pretty hype, won't lie. Makes me feel glad at least some people read this.

Prospective reader I’ll say that a first experience is something special. Your mind is opened to something so completely new it’s infatuating. In my time new experiences lead to an obsession in my mind. I want to absorb everything I can about a given subject I find myself researching. And normally a first experience is just that: the first. Your mind cannot be reopened to it (not fully at any rate). However, the exception exists in Olympus.

Travis had mentioned it once or twice but I wasn’t listening, instead focusing on the new things I was learning. However once Christmas neared the year round campers were talking and I finally asked the Stoll brothers about it.

“You weren’t paying attention were you?” Connor asked at dinner that day. I stared down into my fizzy grape juice with a hint of shame.

“Sorry,” I said.

“No worries,” Travis said, waving his fork. He got flecks of beef juices all over, but he didn’t seem to care. “We’re going to Olympus.” I stopped what I was doing, going for another bite, and looked up at him.

“Olympus?” I asked.

“Mhm,” the brothers said in unison.

“ _ The _ Olympus,” I repeated. They nodded. “In Greece…” I paused. “Wait no, it’s here isn’t it?”

“Top of the Empire State Building,” Connor said. That boggled me more. Doren had said it was in America, I figured it was on an actual mountain. I must have looked as confused as I felt because Travis took over.

“The actual mountain isn’t there, just the palaces in the clouds and all that,” he said. “More magic dealing with the movement of the heart of the west, all that stuff.” He went back to eating.

“This is a once in a lifetime experience,” I said. I tried to wrap my mind around visiting Mount Olympus and how that worked with the Empire State Building.

“Once a year,” Connor said. “Winter Solstice is the Council of the Gods where they all meet up and discuss stuff. Even the Lord of the Dead is allowed up there.” The perked up my eyebrows.

“Is he not allowed up there?” I asked. “I know him and his brothers drew straws but does that mean he’s just stuck down there?”

“Kind of,” Travis said. “Being who he is he’s not really welcome on Olympus a lot so he’s got a chip on his shoulder, but he’s not evil… I think.” Connor elbowed his brother.

“Come on dude, don’t poke fun of him of all the gods,” he said. Travis rolled his eyes. I went back to finishing up my meal. Right now it was the 15th so we had a few days to prepare, if there was much preparation. I looked outside the pavilion at the lightly dusted camp. The sky was various shades of orange as dusk engulfed it. The whole thing felt cozy despite the open ceiling. Cabin windows were lit in the dark, little balls of orange light. The temperature was also decently mild, at least we didn’t need big jackets. I wanted to walk around before the campfire and just take in the scenery. I said as much to the Stolls but they said they wanted to finish the last touches on a prank they were keeping me in the dark in, but wanted my help on. “Plausible deniability,” Travis had said when I asked, whatever that meant. So I didn’t bother with it.

Once dinner was over campers piled out of the pavilion and went to deal with whatever they needed to. I made my way down the steps carefully since I saw someone slip a few days ago and take a massive header.

“Hey Jerry,” I heard behind me. Charity jumped the last step and landed beside me.

“Don’t call me Jerry,” I said. “I preferred Cupcake.”

“All right, fine then Cupcake,” Charity said, giving me a shoulder bump. I smiled while my heart raced. It had been a couple weeks and Charity and I had been becoming decently fast friends now that we pushed past the awkwardness. “I can’t wait for the campfire,” she said. “I don’t know why but the marshmallows taste better when it’s cold out.”

“That might be it, could also just be how cozy everything is,” I said. “It’s cozy by the fire and munching on half burnt marshmallows. Makes me wanna huddle up in a blanket by my own fire.”

“Well that’s romantic,” Charity said. I stopped in my tracks.

“Wait what?” I asked. Charity started laughing.

“I was joking,” she said. “Mostly. But that’s the kind of thing that would be romantic.”

“You don’t say,” I said. I noted in my head that perhaps that would be a way to confess to Charity later on. “I was gonna take a walk around camp before the campfire, wanna join?”

“Sure, could use the exercise,” she said. Just then a hand grabbed my shoulder and I jumped. I swung around to see Doren, his arm pulled back.

“Whoa there, didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. His smile said he did. Now my heart was hammering from both the scare and being near Charity. “I finally got some time off since the holidays are coming around so I figured I’d hang around and check on a couple of my favourite campers.”

“You mean he’s one of your favorites?” Charity asked jokingly. Doren chuckled.

“Charity you don’t attend school with, then trudge across the country with someone and not be their friend,” he said. “That said, how are you two doing?”

“Oh, fine, minus the heart attack,” I said.

“Cupcake here made me be his friend,” Charity said. She was wearing a big smile and that just warmed me up. Doren let out a huge sigh.

“Honestly, I was hoping you two would start talking,” he said. Then he leaned in. “I’m not sure that the Stoll brothers are the best influence on you.” I frowned.

“Connor and Travis are fine,” I said. Doren chuckled and ruffled my hair.

“I’m kidding, stop taking things literally,” he said. “I heard you said you were going for a pre-campfire walk. Mind if I join?” Charity and I agreed and we set about on a path I had sort of improvised. Camp as a whole was massive so I tried to weave around various landmarks to have things to look at. The specific route isn’t important. However it was when we passed by the cabins that Charity asked me something.

“What’s it like in there?” She was pointing at the Hermes cabin.

“You weren’t in there?” I asked.

“Nope,” Doren said. “Charity here got claimed almost as soon as she got to camp.” I could hear the pride in his voice and it stung a bit.

“It wasn’t anything special,” Charity said. “Kind of obvious, my mother was a soldier. Of course she’d get Ares interested.” That was new. Charity was proactive and great in Capture the Flag, so it made sense to me she was a daughter of Ares. But I never knew about her personal life.

“On that note,” Doren said. I saw a tendon in his neck strain a bit. “I’ve heard good things about you Jeremiah.”

“You have?” I asked.

“Man I heard about how hard you’ve been going on learning to fight. It’s great,” he said.

“Yeah, Cupcake’s not bad,” Charity said. She grinned at me and I could feel my face light up. “He can actually put up a fight.” Doren clapped me on the back.

“I knew you’d make a name for yourself!” he said. “Goes to show you don’t need to know your godly parentage to do something good.” 

“Uh… thanks,” I said. We walked a few more steps before I remembered Charity’s original question. “Oh, and the inside of the cabin is pretty basic. I-I guess. I sleep on the floor, though.”

“You do?” she asked. Doren nodded.

“Unfortunate side effect of Hermes’s patronage. A lot of unclaimed demigods so the cabin’s a bit tight for space. Just wait until the summer crowd shows up. You’ll be even more cramped,” he said. I shuddered.

“Please no, I can barely manage what space I have with a sleeping bag, clothes, and folder,” I said.

“Folder?” Doren and Charity said in unison. I stopped in my tracks. Of course. I hadn’t told anyone aside from the Stolls and Luke, also Chiron, about the folder Dionysus had given me. I sighed and kept walking. They matched pace with me.

“When I got here, Dionysus gave me a folder containing some information on my mother. Most of it was an obituary,” I said. The mood of the trip suddenly tanked. I shoved my hands in my pockets and looked at the ground. “Really the information wasn’t much. Just told me the highlights of her life. She died giving birth to me. Her name was Helena.” We walked in silence for a few minutes as everyone present digested the info. Then Charity spoke up.

“Maybe it’s better that way,” she said. Doren gave her a distasteful glare.

“Charity!” he chastised.

“I mean it,” she said. Her face grew more determined. “Sometimes it’s better that the parent isn’t around.” I could hear the tone of spite edging into her voice. Doren didn’t respond. He knew something.

“I guess,” I said. “On the bright side it’s not like I’m missing out on anything new. I can try to research her later. Right now I wanna focus on camp.” I meant it. I pushed my mother into the back of my mind and turned my mind to the walk right here and now. Doren’s hand rested on both my and Charity’s shoulders.

“You guys, I swear,” he said. He took a deep breath and shook his head. “You never fail to surprise me.” Then flakes of snow were falling and a fire in the distance was lit. “Tell you what, let’s leave the macabre stuff behind for the night and go get some marshmallows.” Doren led us over to the amphitheater.

That night I did my best to push everything out of my mind. The Ares and Hermes cabins sat next to each other so Charity and I did the same. We roasted marshmallows, sang songs, and enjoyed the light snowfall. I watched the firelight play across her face beautifully. I let myself admire her for a minute before pushing those feelings down. I didn’t need to spend my friendship fawning over her if she wasn’t interested. For now we were two friends having fun around the campfire in the winter.

However, Charity was right. The two of us sitting by each other in front of a fire was kind of romantic.

  


\---

  


Here’s the part where I describe the visit to Olympus. Let me tell you it is something special. However, I’m gonna start on the day of the trip. Chiron established the night before that it was going to be an overnight trip (cabin separated sleeping areas, he stressed) and that we should pack an overnight bag. I asked Travis and Connor about it but all they would say was that I wouldn’t want to be spoiled. I remember being super frustrated with them, and with Charity who shared the same sentiment.

“Trust me,” she said. “It’s something you just need to see, you can’t just tell someone about it and think it’ll be the same.”

“Oh come on,” I groaned. Charity punched me in the shoulder.

“Quit whining, we’re heading there in just a bit.”

“I know, it’s just…” I rubbed my wounded shoulder. “I dunno, it’s like not looking under your presents during christmas.” I thought back to some of my foster homes and remembered I never did get a lot of gifts. However, the few I did get made me so anxious to open them.

“I guess,” Charity said. She had a grimace on her face. “Still, just stop being so damn impatient.”

“All right,” I said. “I gotta head back to the Hermes cabin, see you.” Charity gave me a mock salute and I joined the Stolls in the mass that was the Hermes cabin populace. I picked up the backpack I had left on the ground and stood with Travis and Connor while Luke took attendance. He walked around and made sure we were all prepared. I found myself rocking back and forth on my heels in anticipation. When Luke got to me he noticed.

“Someone’s excited, you all set?” he asked. I nodded.

“It’s pretty cool to go see it,” I said. “How is it?” Luke grimaced at my question like Charity did. Like there was a pain associated with the subject matter.

“It’s… something all right,” he finally stated. “Just don’t get too excited and run off.” The Stoll brothers each put a hand on my shoulders.

“Don’t worry, boss,” Travis said.

“He won’t go too far,” Connor finished. Luke looked between the two brothers with absolutely zero belief.

“Uh huh,” was all he said before he moved on. Once he was out of earshot the brothers talked into my ears, which was a surreal experience.

“Look, we have a plan to do something,” Travis started.

“But we  _ do _ have to be careful. It is the home of the gods so we can’t be too audacious,” Connor finished.

“Just follow our lead,” Travis added. They both patted my shoulders and helped me get in line for the vans while I wondered what they were on about. From there it wasn’t long before we were all packed into the camp vans, bearing the signage of a strawberry farm, and on our way to the city.

As we got onto the highway I found myself staring at everything. The cars holding so many people driving along with their own goals in mind. We passed by houses and apartments on the way into New York that made me question who lived in them. What were they like? At one point I saw a family in a minivan. From what I could see it was two parents and a brother and sister. They were pointing things out to each other and talking and laughing. 

In my chest I felt a pang of loneliness. Camp Half-Blood was my family now, for better or worse, but I never had that kind of blood connection with anyone. The only one I did have that connection with, as far as I was aware, was dead. I realised that that was… a very depressing thought (and that wasn’t even the worst of it to come) so I tried to focus my attention on the Brooklyn Bridge.

An incredible network of support cables and brickwork that spanned this massive river. In that moment I felt so insignificant and tiny. I supposed that was one reason the gods had chosen New York; it was impossible not to be in or on one of these buildings and not feel on top of the world. Our van crossed the bridge and navigated the various clogged roads of New York with practiced experience. I found my attention grabbed by just how crowded the whole city was. Cars flooded the streets and people moved around the sidewalks as if they were a weird liquid. Different groups skirting around each other. Yeah I’m still not good at analogies.

While I was able to make out landmarks from a distance, that changed as we got closer and closer to the Empire State Building. I got to see some points of interest like Rockefeller Center with the statue of Prometheus, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (which looked like a government building, aside from the banners advertising their newest exhibit), and we drove near the Chrysler Building. However the big stop was just outside the Empire State Building. The vans parked alongside the building’s entrance and we all got out. Looking straight up was a bad idea but I did it anyway. While I got a decent view of the building’s art deco style (something I only learned about later… okay I read about it recently so sue me), the 102 stories made me scared of the height. I heard Travis and Connor walk up beside me, stretching.

“Man those drives are a pain,” Travis said while stretching. Connor nodded and leaned on me.

“Big, ain’t it?” he asked. I nodded, looking at the ground. “Well I hope you’re ready for Olympus, it’s bigger.” With that the Stolls walked forward. I hefted my backpack and followed them, jogging to catch up. We entered the lobby where Chiron was talking to a bald guy at the front desk. We waited for several minutes while things were worked out. My eyes went all over the lobby and yet I couldn’t tell you what it was like in there. Chalk it up to excitement. It looked ornate and grand and all that. Soon enough we were being corralled into reasonably sized groups that entered into the elevators. It seemed to take forever, the anticipation was driving me crazy. However, in due time, me, the Stoll brothers, and some other campers from the Hermes cabin climbed into the elevator. Luke was by the buttons, a card in his hand. Once the door closed he slid the card into a slot that was above the buttons. A new button labeled 600 popped out on the bottom and he pressed it.

“Bit of a trip up,” Luke said. “Enjoy the muzak.” The elevator rose and I watched the number tick up slowly. The song playing over the speakers was some tune from the 80s I think. It droned on as the number hit 102 and then started glitching out. The counter started jumping around from floor -346 up to floor 999999999999999999999999999999, etc. etc. Then it finally settled on 600. “All right, last stop. Have fun, I’ll be out shortly. Don’t act dumb,” Luke said. The doors opened and I think my brain broke a bit.

To this day Olympus is one of those things I find hard putting into words. Imagine the pure majesty of encountering the perfect fantasy castle. Then multiply that by like a million and you kind of have an idea. A massive golden city that sprawled out across the clouds above New York hanging just above the Empire State Building. At the very peak was a palace that was probably the biggest building I’d ever seen. A golden palace that seemed about half as big as Manhattan on its own dominated the city. People, at least I assumed it was people at the time, walked around the buildings in groups. They talked and chatted, did various tasks, played games, etc. It was total sensory overload. The whole city seemed to brighten as I looked at it. Then a hand appeared in my face and snapped its fingers.

“-miah, buddy, you there?” Connor asked. I shook my head and jarred myself out of the stupor I’d put myself in.

“What?” I asked, turning to the brothers.

“Man your pupils went  _ wide _ ,” Travis said, his hands splaying to demonstrate. “Like you’d been hypnotized or something.” Travis was looking me in the eyes but my gaze was tracking to the side and he moved in front of it. “Dude, pay attention.”

“Sorry,” I said. I shook my head hard. Then Travis slapped me across the face. Not super hard, but enough to really drag me back to reality.

“Dude,” Connor said with a frown.

“No, no, it’s fine,” I placated. I took a deep breath and looked back over at Olympus. Now that I’d had a moment to process, I could look at it and think about it. “So who are they?” I asked, pointing to all the people.

“Oh, those are minor gods, various spirits, divine entities, that sort of thing,” Connor said. “I’m not sure just how many beings there are, but there’s a lot.”

“I wonder if we’ll get to see dad this time,” Travis mused.

“You mean Hermes?” I asked. They nodded.

“It’s the council of the gods so they all show up, but sometimes they’re super busy depending on what’s being discussed,” Connor explained.

“Means sometimes dad can’t see us, especially since he’s Zeus’s messenger,” Travis finished. “But this year’s been pretty quiet so maybe he’ll stop by.” They both shrugged and moved on to another topic but my mind wandered a bit. Making an assumption, the center building was the throne room of the gods. If all the gods, at least the main twelve, were convening there then it’s possible my father was there.

‘That means Hades, too’ my mind said. Suddenly my conversation with Chiron came back into my head when he speculated about my parentage. He said Hades wasn’t my father and yet I had my doubts. The gods were powerful after all. Couldn’t Hades, if he was my father, hide my power? At least that’s something I hoped. Having powers over the dead would be cool. However I had yet to manifest any powers except talking to Thalia’s tree that one time. That was something that still freaked me out. Still, perhaps this would be my chance to at least see the gods and get a feel for which one would be my father.

“Yo, Jeremiah,” Connor yelled at me. I was pulled from my thoughts and saw he was waving me over. I had drifted a few feet away from the Hermes group. I quickly jogged back and fell in line with the Stolls. I realised everyone had gathered by the elevator door. I must have zoned out pretty hard. At the front Chiron was giving us instructions. He relayed that we’d be going on a tour of Olympus, to be mindful and respectful of the beings here, not to mess with anything, and if things went well we’d even be able to see the throne room. A lot of muttering over that last announcement. After everything was seen, we’d spend the night here, and then travel back to camp in the morning where we’d have the whole day off to relax. More muttering, this time more excited. Groups were organized and Luke started leading us towards the city.

I think, looking back, what surprised me about Olympus was how… normal it seemed up close. I think that’s the best way to describe it. Far away it seemed so magical. Up close I could see the individual buildings populated by various… I’ll just call them people. Anything else is weird to write. Honestly aside from them being super golden, the buildings looked like the kind I’d see if I visited Greece (a fact I researched later in life). Tiles roofs, white walls, that sort of thing. Much like me a lot of the newer campers were oo-ing and aaah-ing at everything. Many of the veterans looked on in awe. I noticed that Luke wasn’t looking on in complete reverence. More like he was thinking about something else. I don’t know how he could, this was so incredible. Some of the people waved to us and I wasn’t sure if I should wave back so I just gave a smile.

We passed by several fountains that had water displays that would put Las Vegas to shame. The water sprayed out in patterns that showed the images of the gods or locations that must have been important to them. One was, curiously, a luxury car dealership. Like the whole building. Soon followed by who I assumed was Apollo based on the sun that was made above the image of the man. Or god. 

“Hephaestus does good work,” Travis commented as we passed it by.

“He made all this?” I asked.

“Not the whole city,” Connor explained. “But a lot of the little cool bits here and there. Also started Olympus TV for the gods.”

“I heard it was all bad reality TV,” Travis said.

“Did dad mention that?”

“Think so, probably.”

“Reality TV?” I asked. The brothers shrugged and didn’t really give an answer. Weird. We passed by a pool that was said to contain the waters of Lemnos which had purifying properties. The pool was massive. I dare say it was olympic sized. (okay that was bad, I don’t know why I wrote it). 

We also passed by a smoking forge, which sparked the interest of the Hephaestus kids. Must have been their dad’s. I stared at it, wondering if I could feel a connection to it. I couldn’t. Hell I was clumsy with making things with an instruction booklet. We continued on, passing by various buildings and monuments and sacred items. A small wooded area that had several silver deer running around that must have belonged to Artemis. A pool dedicated to Poseidon, that sort of thing. As we explored around we came across a centre section. Before us was a massive pair of golden doors that had no knob. To say these doors dwarfed us was an understatement. We were insects before these doors. They had a ton of etchings of various events that have happened. I managed to spy a couple I recognized. Mostly Hercules’s labors. I saw the Nemean Lion and the Hydra. I might have also seen something else from his tales but I wasn’t sure. I did see a woman who had an arrow notched as two centaurs rushed at her. Another featured a man and woman making plans at a table. The woman had a knife behind her back. That was followed up by a sign that read ‘Please Do Not Disturb’ in bold, seraphed font.

“That doesn’t match the doors,” I said absentmindedly. The Stoll brothers started snickering. It wasn’t very subtle since I saw Chiron give us a look of annoyance.

“It seems the Counsel of the Gods has commences,” Chiron announced. “With that, I think it’s time to break before we head back to our resting quarters. Feel free to use the observation deck and check out the gift shop if you have the drachmas for it.” I had a few drachmas in my backpack, courtesy of the Stolls. I didn’t know how they came across them and didn’t ask. Instead I took the opportunity to follow them to the observation deck which had those binocular things that you put a quarter in to see more. I slid a drachma in and got into the little step to see. I quickly stepped down and almost unleashed the contents of my stomach onto the floor of the palace of the gods.

“Whoa, man, you all right?” Connor asked. He put a hand on my shoulder as I covered my mouth. My stomach was heaving and my mouth was so full of saliva in preparation. It took a minute but I managed to swallow.

“Sorry,” I managed to get out. I stood shakily. “I was not prepared for the height.”

“You scared of heights?” Travis asked. I shook my head.

“No I just get vertigo really bad,” I explained. “I took a school trip to the Space Needle in Seattle once. It was great but looking down made my stomach go sideways.” I started coughing and covering my mouth. At that point Luke had walked over.

“What’s wrong,” he asked. The Stolls explained my vertigo and Luke reached into his pocket and pulled some pills from a small bottle. He handed them to me and I popped them in. they were chewables, chalky and more like compressed dust than medicine. But I chewed and swallowed them. My stomach started to ease and I stood straight with little issue.

“What are those?” I asked. Luke gave me a smile.

“Motion sickness tablets. I knew a couple people who had it so I’ve found that keeping some on hand is useful,” he explained. He handed me the tube. “Keep these while we’re here. Might help with the vertigo.”

“Oh, thanks,” I said. That was super nice of him. However in the moment my time on the binocular had run out so Connor slipped one in there from his stash. Taking a deep breath to steel myself I looked through them. I got to see New York from what I’d call the perfect angle. Night time had approached and I got to see the city from above while the lights were like those on a christmas tree (hey that’s not a bad one). The buildings illuminated the night while on the roads I saw strings of red and white lights that were the cars going to and fro. Olympus was beautiful in the sense that I could barely comprehend it. But New York was its own, almost humble, form of pretty. It was calmer, more comprehensible, reassuring. I never lived there but I know city lights at night. New York was king of them. No wonder the gods chose this place. Then the binoculars closed and I stepped back.

“You good?” Travis asked. I nodded.

“Yeah, those tablets helped,” I said. “Wanna check out the gift shop?” We did so and I can safely say that like every other part of a trip, the gift shop was underwhelming. It wasn’t even gold, just marble. And not even good marble at that. The shelves were stocked with miniscule knick knacks that would have sufficed in a Greek mythology themed museum. It was the only thing that I could describe in detail, but it really wasn’t much. There was a basket full of replica bows. I grabbed one and the plastic was so cheap it almost snapped in my hand. Travis and Connor wandered around looking disappointed.

“I swear there was more to get,” Connor complained as he poked a snow globe. “Last year there were at least some fun little pranks like whoopie cushions and stuff.”

“That was the year before,” Travis said. “I think.” He walked around a small display of mini figures of the gods. Some of them looked suspiciously like tabletop game miniatures but slightly altered. “Man there is nothing.”

“Maybe break a snow globe?” Connor asked. Travis shook his head.

“Remember when Henry dropped one couple years ago? The entire cabin had to be aired out for like two days.”

“Oh yeah.” The two of them went back to searching. I browsed more but honestly it wasn’t worth it. Cheap toys and knick knacks made this kind of depressing to look at. However I spied something in the back of one of the shelves. I nudged some wooden puzzles aside and grabbed what was back there. It was a spray can with the label racing ‘Centaur Blood. Genuine!’ with a little cartoon centaur giving a thumbs up and a winning smile. The spray can was covered in dust. Did they even get dust up here? Apparently. I wiped it off and saw that it was dated like fifty years ago.

“Hey guys, come check this out,” I said. They appeared at each shoulder and Travis was the first one to realise what Id’ found.

“Whoa!” he grabbed the can from my hand and held it up. A grin spread across his face. “Oh man we can have a lot of uses for this.”

“I’ve already got like five ideas,” Connor added. He grabbed the can and examined it.

“Wouldn’t that be expired by now?” I asked. The brothers shook their heads in unison.

“Stuff like this lasts a long time. A few decades is nothing,” Connor said. “Let’s buy it before it gets thrown out or something.” They rushed to the counter and shoved drachmas at the attendant. I think they paid about three times what it was worth, but the attendant seemed satisfied. The Stolls then rushed to me and shepherded me out of the gift shop. They quickly got to muttering and plotting what they’d do with the stuff. I suddenly felt a finger tap my shoulder and I jumped. I turned around and saw Charity there.

“Hey Cupcake,” she greeted.

“Oh, hey Charity,” I panted. “Sorry, you spooked me.”

“No worries, but what are they doing?” she jerked a thumb over at the Stolls.

“Plotting, that’s all I can say,” I shrugged. “Maybe best to look as un prankable as possible for the next while.” 

“I see,” she said. “Anyway, I wanted to show you something I found.” She reached down and grabbed my hand, making my face red. “Come on.” She pulled me back the way we came, close to the center section. As we neared she stopped and put a finger to her lips. Then she slowly pulled me along to the door that led to the throne room. The ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign was gone and the doors were cracked open. Charity pulled me to the crack and looked in. It was quiet. Then she stepped aside, letting go of me. I peeked in. The throne room was empty but that didn’t make it any less magnificent. Unique thrones surrounding a massive hearth at the center. The fire was roaring bright and high, but sitting right in front of it, with her back to us, was a small girl. I turned to Charity and mouthed

“Who’s that?” jerking my thumb in the direction of the girl. Charity raised an eyebrow and mouthed

“Who?” I looked back in the throne room. The girl was still there. Suddenly she turned around to look at me. Her eyes were made of fire, but not a raging inferno. Like a fireplace. She offered me a warm smile before turning back to the hearth. Charity and I walked away from the throne room. When we were far enough away she asked, “What were you talking about?”

“There was a girl with fire in her eyes,” I said. “She smiled at me but did nothing.” Charity shuddered.

“Man that’s creepy.”

“A little I guess.” I didn’t say then, but it wasn’t creeping me out. The girl wasn’t threatening me, I could feel that much. However I had no idea what she wanted with me and why Charity couldn’t see her. “Weird,” was all I said with a shrug.

“Well going off topic,” Charity said, “did you see the observation deck?”

“Yeah, I almost threw up there.” Charity started snickering at me.

“No way,” she said. “Wanna go there and look through the binocular things?” 

“Sure,” I said. I was eager to see New York again. Even more so with her.


	9. An Interim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short interim before Jeremiah encounters adventure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This didn't take a long time to write, I just had a few things going on. However it was good to get this out of the way, since now I can sit and plan out the next section of the story. Namely: a quest. Might slide off the radar with the story for another bit, but I'm sure the rest of my library will be entertaining enough.

This entry will be short, prospective reader. I mostly want to cover the period of time between the Olympus visit and New Years. I guess I remember that as the best part before Charity’s quest. Man… that was rough. I’m getting ahead of myself, and I have to slow down. I’ll begin with when Clarisse dunked me into the arena floor while Doren and Charity watched. By dunked I mean she did a wide swing into a shoulder bash that sent me flying.

I landed on my back and skidded across the cool arena floor. The breath was shot from my lungs and I spent several seconds attempting to breathe. I could hear Clarisse say something in that gruff voice of hers but I couldn’t make it out. A second later I heard muffled hoof clacks that slowly increased in volume as they got closer and as my body readjusted itself. Doren leaned over me and helped me up. He took the spear from my hands and set it aside as he helped me sit up.

“You okay man?” he asked as I started coughing really hard. That made my chest hurt more. Then my brain registered the shoulder impact and I fell back again since hunching over hurt. Doren was quick to grab my shoulders and make sure I was still with him. A couple rough coughs and a sharp intake of breath later I was able to assuage his fears with a raspy

“Yeah, sorry,” before another cough. I sat there trying to remember how to breathe properly when Clarisse and Charity walked over.

“You did a real number on him, sister,” Charity commented.

“Not my fault he can’t handle it,” Clarisse berated me.

“Yeah you,” I coughed, “got a real shoulder on you,” I said.

“That an insult punk?” Clarisse asked.

“No,” I said, clearly. “Just saying you almost caved my chest in and that I should get used to it.” Clarisse glowered at me, trying to find the sarcasm. There was a bit in there, but I was hoping she’d just forget about it and consider it a compliment. She must have because she huffed and walked away, saying something about practicing more later. I took a deep breath and sighed.

“You got a death wish?” Charity asked.

“Nah, Clarisse won’t kill me over that,” I said. “I’d have to directly insult her pretty badly. Getting some jabs in won’t make her kill me.” I furrowed my brow as I thought on that. “I think.”

“Well maybe don’t push your luck, buddy,” Doren said, helping me up. “Last thing I want is to see you in the Underworld.” Standing was iffy for a second as I was still a bit lightheaded from not breathing right, but the world righted itself quickly.

“Do satyrs go to the Underworld?” I asked. Doren shook his head.

“No. Monsters go down to the pit below the Underworld, satyrs and some other nature spirits reincarnate as flora when we die,” he explained. “So once my time comes, whenever that’ll be, I’ll turn into a flower. I knew a guy who turned into a rhododendron…” Doren trailed off, a sad smile on his face. “Lucky SOB,” he muttered.

“You good?” Charity asked. Doren started.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” he waved her concern off. “Trust me, I plan to live as long as I can. Just that a rhododendron is a good flower to come back as is all.” He gave us a smile that told us to drop the issue so I didn’t bother pressing further, but I could tell that Charity was concerned.

It was later that evening when she brought it up to me.

“You think Doren’s got something going on?” she asked as we passed by the sword arena. I stopped and she did as well.

“What?” I asked.

“You know, the whole turning into a flower thing,” she stressed.

“Oh that,” I said. “I don’t think so, sounds true, what he said.”

“No, no, that’s not it,” she said. She bounced her hands up and down a few times, trying to get the words right. “I think he might be… like suicidal?” I raised an eyebrow in shock. Charity’s face turned red and she stammered a bit before trying again. “I don’t know, he seems… depressed or something, after saying that one guy he knew turned into a rhododendron. He seemed like he wanted to just not be here anymore.” Charity looked deep into my eyes, pleading for me to understand. I got what she was saying, but I was having trouble understanding it fully at the time.

“I mean he seems fine to me,” I admitted. “Sometimes people think about dying sometimes, you know?” I shrugged it off and I could see Charity getting frustrated. “Let’s keep walking,” I said. We started up again as she tried to reason with me.

“It just sounds like stuff I’ve heard before people do awful things to themselves,” she reasoned.

“Look, I’m not saying that isn’t the case,” I responded. “But I don’t think he’s going to do something like kill himself.”

“You don’t know that,” she fired back.

“He doesn’t come off as that way, so why are you so focused on it?” I asked. “You’re an expert now?” At the time I was getting irritated. Doren was my friend too, and seeing Charity call him things I didn’t agree with was getting to me. At the time we were making our way up Half-Blood Hill, near Thalia’s tree. Charity stopped and glared at me.

“You don’t know me,” she stated. “I’ve seen that happen before. It’s awful.”

“Charity,” I kept pressing the issue, much to my current chagrin. “Just because you’ve seen it before doesn’t mean it happens to everyone. People just think about dying sometimes, okay? Besides if you’re so all knowing, then tell me why you do know.”

I’ll never forget the look she gave me. Shock and hurt emanated from her eyes, so strongly that in that moment I felt thick regret fall onto my shoulders. Her jaw was clenched in anger but the tears brimming in her eyes belied a deep sadness. She tried speaking a few times, opening her mouth before closing it again. Finally she said

“You’re such a jackass,” before turning around and walking away. Her voice quivered as she said it, and I could hear her sniffling as she left. I stood there in the cold, windy New York winter watching Charity head back to the Ares cabin. She left my field of view as she went around to the front of the cabin and a particular gust of wind hit me, scything through my clothes with cold. I heard a door slam in the distance and I could only let out a sigh.

“I guess I am a jackass,” I said as another gust hit me. I tugged my jacket close around me to try and keep the cold out. “Damn it.” I turned to Thalia’s tree. The image I had garnered from the tree appeared in my mind: the girl alone on the battlefield dying as she fended off a horde. That sense of resignation, the word ‘tired’ being sent into my head. It had been almost two months since then and I’d never attempted it. I guess Charity pushing me away for being an idiot was as good a reason as any, and I walked up to the tree once more. I placed my hand on the trunk, surprised to find a sense of warmth, however minor, emanating from it.

The best way I can explain what happened next was I just sent a feeling into the tree. The feeling of regret from making Charity angry was most prominent in my mind, so I sent that into the tree. Just like before, the tree responded. An image was jolted into my mind along with a single word. The image was Half-Blood Hill again. However it was the girl standing, watching the horde of monsters approaching.

‘Same’ was the word sent into my mind with an injection of thick regret. It was so thick I stumbled back and doubled over, almost throwing up. Several coughing fits later, I stood up. Okay clearly I could communicate with this tree. I walked back up and placed a hand on it and instead of sending a feeling, I tried speaking.

‘Hello, my name is Jeremiah,’ I tried thinking at the tree. Maybe I could get it to talk. I got a response, this time confusion and a sense of muddlement.

‘Name?’ it asked. I almost let my hand drop, but I held it in place. My mind was clouded due to the feelings the tree sent into me.

‘Yes, your name,’ I said back. I had a couple feelings in the back of my mind, and the outcome depended on the answer. The tree took a moment to respond. What was happening, I have no idea. However eventually, it did respond.

‘Thalia,’ it said. It sent an image to my mind. A blond guy and a small blonde girl sitting around a small fire in an alleyway. I pulled my hand away and stood there to process what I had just discovered. Thalia was in there, still conscious to some degree, and I could talk to her. I had some more questions, but that would require me to talk to some of the other campers without being too specific about what I happened upon. However I didn’t feel right leaving Thalia up on this hill alone. I didn’t need to disappoint two people tonight. I put my hand back on the trunk and thought

‘Okay Thalia, I need to go now. I’ll be back in time, promise.’ I waited a moment for a response.

‘Tired,’ I got once more, and exhaustion flooded over me before I could pull away. I trudged through the snow back to the Hermes cabin before Thalia’s latent exhaustion made me collapse on the ground. Several campers were asleep when I stomped in, and my arrival was met with some confused and irritated glares but I didn’t care. I made it to my corner of the cabin and lay down, my mind racing. However once my head hit the pillow the exhaustion took over and I fell asleep.


	10. Quest? Quest!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quest is ordered for Charity, who seems apprehensive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, it's me, ya boi. Back again after a Christmas break. This chapter's not bad, and it's good to get back into the swing of this more serious writing. And now we're in, I guess, the proper Arc 1 with Charity's quest. I did some research to see if there was a quest I could do that wasn't already done before in the official books and found the Cretan Bull. I figured what a perfect setup that seems so simple at first. Hopefully I can spice it up enough for you all to enjoy.
> 
> On that note, like 90 views so far which is actually pretty nice. If you are someone consistently following this fin then thanks a lot, it means a lot to me.

Prospective reader, I have to say that a quest can change a demigod. I’m sure you’ve heard that quests are a chance for demigods to prove themselves in the elements, to show they can handle more than just training exercises, to display that they can handle a life or death battle and that their training wasn’t for naught. This quest did change me. Once again, however, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Going back to a few days after Charity and I had our argument, in the new year, I did the daring thing of knocking on the door of the Ares cabin. How fortunate I was that Charity opened the door. The expression on her face when she saw me was a combination of irritation and shame. Before I could say anything she tried to close the door. I had slipped my foot in before and it caught. She opened the door to look at my foot.

“Really?” she asked.

“Look, Charity, I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have been more sensitive to what you were thinking. You’re right, I was an idiot.”

“I said you were a jackass,” she corrected. Then she sighed. “Look, it wasn’t all you. I was thinking about it and I realised I got upset at you for not understanding something I never told you. So I’m sorry about that.” She looked me in the eye finally. I had to control my breathing, looking into her baby blue eyes. We stood there on the threshold of her cabin silently until I finally asked,

“So, we’re square then?” She smiled.

“Sure, this time,” she said. “Now get your foot out of the door, I was going to have a nap.” I did so and the door closed gently. I went back to the sword arena with a weight lifted off of my shoulders.

It was a few days after that when Charity approached me at the practice arena. Doren was watching me give some dummies the business when Charity walked up and sat down beside him. I was just doing a downward slash into an upward chest stab before I turned to them.

“What’s up?” I asked. Charity sighed.

“I got a… message? I don’t know,” she said.

“A message?” Doren asked. “Dream message?” Charity nodded. “Well that’s gotta be important, you can tell us,” he said, gently coaxing her to talk. Charity heaved a sigh and stared at the ground.

“I got a dream from my dad,” she admitted.

“Ares? Would he do something as subtle as a dream message?” I asked. Charity gave me a glare and I shut up.

“Are you sure it was Ares?” Doren asked.

“Oh I’m sure,” she said. “He’s sent me a couple before, mostly on how to not screw up here.” Charity ran her hands through her hair in frustrations. “This time he wants me to go on a quest.” My heart skipped a beat. Doren’s eyes lit up and he smiled.

“Well hey, that’s gotta be good,” he said. “Your father wants you to really prove yourself out there.”

“Yeah he wants to see me screw something big up, that’s what,” she said. She scowled, still at the ground. “I  _ should _ tell Chiron about it but I really don’t want to.”

“Why not?” I asked. “Like, issues with your dad aside, isn’t a quest something a lot of demigods want to do?”

“Well I’m one of the one percent,” she said. “This is just a chance for me to screw up and learn from it. He’s mentioned ‘building character’ before.” Charity added air quotes around the building character. “Besides he wants me to capture the Cretan Bull and that’s just a mess.”

“Well Heracles did that,” Doren said. “Kind of minor in the overall scheme of his tales, I’ll admit, but still a great task. That bull is no joke.”

“What did it do again?” I asked.

“It tore up crops, destroyed fences, that sort of thing. General havoc,” Charity said. “What a great quest. It’ll really show my battle prowess.”

“Well now, the thing is Heracles captured it alive,” Doren explained. “Which is a lot harder than just killing it, especially since it was sacred to Minos.”

“Even better,” she grumbled. “Not only do I get a quest to do something Heracles already did, it’s not even one of the interesting ones.”

“I mean, what’s the harm in doing it?” I asked. When Charity’s head snapped up to look at me I had to talk fast. “Look, you said this is gonna be a lesson from your dad right? Well do it successfully, and do it well. I know he might give some spiel about not getting overconfident but that’s better than gloating over your failures right?” Charity sat there for a few minutes looking at me. At the time I wasn’t sure what tactic I was using to boost her confidence but nowadays I’m very aware. I was convincing her to utilize the ever infinite power of spite.

“Maybe,” she said, slouching down again. “I’ll think about it.”

“Wanna practice in the meantime?” I asked. That got a smile on her face.

“Yeah, I can beat you up and imagine you as my dad,” she said.

“Well, before you do that,” Doren intervened. “I’ve been seeing you two practice a lot and I wanna try and teach you a little something I know.” We both stared at him before he elaborated. “It’s not a devastating combat move, guys. It’s just a little quickstep.” He then proceeded to show us what he meant once charity acquired her sword and shield.

In truth what Doren showed us was, in fact, very valuable combat information. While not being very strictly in line with the traditional soldier training, he said this would help us in the inevitable one-on-one duels we’d encounter. A quick step in any direction would allow us to reposition, especially if we knew the area we were fighting in, and get the edge on our opponent. He explained that was partly how satyrs survived in combat, along with other methods. Constant movement meant he wasn’t stiff, always dodging to one side or the other. After showing us how to do it, he let us practice. Of course we tripped and fell a bunch but by the time lunch rolled around we were beginning to get a handle on it.

Lunch was largely uneventful, standard affair I guess. Man I’m not sure how to write about the down time between events in this bloody memoir, but I don’t just wanna skip over to the campfire just yet.

Wait, that's a lie, I did the daring thing and went to ‘talk’ to Thalia’s tree again. Charity had resolved to tell Chiron since that was probably the smart thing to do, Doren went off to the woods to discuss satyr things, I guess. Not wanting to return to the arena or participate as the fall guy for one of Travis and Connor’s pranks, I walked up to Thalia’s tree while no one was about. I wanted another chance to talk to it to see exactly  _ what _ I was talking with. When I got there I put my hand on the tree and projected the word ‘hi’ into it. A minute passed before I got a response.

‘Tired,’ it said.

‘Yes, I know, you’re tired,’ I said. ‘But I want to ask: are you Thalia from three years ago?’ I waited, concentrating on the response I was going to get. I focused all of my mental energy into it. I waited several minutes, looking like a dingus touching a tree. Eventually I did get a response.

‘My name… is Thalia,’ the tree said. I forced myself to really focus on the response and I got it. I felt it. It wasn’t from the tree, but something inside. The wood itself wasn’t responding to me, though I could faintly sense it if I strained my mind. It was something inside the tree, presumably Thalia herself, talking to me.

‘Thank you,’ I said back. I sent her feelings of warmth and comfort, much as I could, and let go. I sat down on Half-Blood Hill and thought about the ramifications of this.

Chiron had said Thalia was turned into a tree ‘as she was dying’. Did this mean she was currently dead, slowly feeding her soul or whatever into the tree? Was she the tree itself? I discounted that because the tree itself didn’t respond to me, not intentionally. Was she… alive in the tree? As far as I was aware no one had made any excavation into the tree. Both as a way to honor Thalia and as a way to not anger Zeus. So her body could theoretically be in there. Maybe. Was that what I was sensing? Or something else? I looked back at the tree. As much as I wanted to interview it more, Thalia (or the tree) seemed to be incapable of coherent conversation. Only able to really talk in feelings and abstract stuff. Forming actual intelligible thoughts with words seemed challenging for her.

“Why are you sitting in the snow?” I heard. I jumped and saw the Stoll brothers standing over me.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re sitting in the snow,” Connor pointed out. I stood up, noticing that my rear was, indeed, soaked through. “Also dinner’s about to start,” he said.

“What are you doing up here?” Travis asked. “Seems a bit pointless to get your butt wet in front of a tree.”

“I was just thinking,” I said. Not a whole lie, just not the whole truth. I had a real urge to hide what I was experiencing mostly because I had no idea what it would mean. In retrospect it’s like, I guess, hiding an illness from your doctor. It’s easier to avoid the ramifications if you pretend it doesn’t exist to everyone else.

“Well let’s get dinner,” Connor said. “I’m starving.”

Dinner was largely uneventful until Chiron made the announcement of a quest declaration. A very embarrassed looking Charity stood beside him as he made a speech. He talked about the importance of this kind of event, that Charity was given a chance to prove herself, etc. Her face was cherry red. She glanced up from the floor and caught my eye. I gave her what I assumed was a reassuring smile. She looked back down at the floor. Then Chiron announced that Charity would be seeing the Oracle tonight before declaring her quest companions at the campfire. The collective reaction was one of sympathy and I agreed. I was told about the Oracle, a seer in the body of an ancient maiden. Apparently people went insane from what it said sometimes.

Charity was led out of the pavilion by Chiron while the rest of us resumed eating and talking. Throughout discussing things with Travis and Connor I kept stealing glances towards the Big House. I couldn’t see anything and eventually I just gave up and focused on talking to the Stolls, who were discussing their next prank goal when Connor said something interesting.

“We could dump spiders in the Athena cabin,” he said, finishing off his goblet of drink, letting it refresh. Travis had a sharp intake of breath, I was confused.

“Why?” I asked, oblivious to the tale of Athena and Arachne. They gave me the cliffs notes version and I chuckled along with them at the idea of them freaking out.

“But where would we get the spiders?” Travis asked.

“I dunno,” Connor admitted. “In the forest?”

“You really wanna spend our good time crawling around and grabbing spiders in the dead of summer?” Travis asked.

“Maybe we can find someone to supply them,” Connor tried. Travis thought about it and shook his head.

“Let’s shelve it for later. I do like the idea, I just don’t want to deal with the hassle of getting the necessary components,” he said. They moved onto greener pastures as they talked. Eventually dinner ended, we all went to the campfire, and then spent an agonizing amount of time singing songs before Chiron and Charity returned with Doren in tow. Chiron had a content look about him, but he seemed a bit tense. Charity looked like she’d seen a ghost. She wasn’t looking at the floor, but her eyes were darting around for something. Doren had a hand on Charity’s shoulder to try and calm her. After pounding his hoof on the marble floor for attention, Chiron formally announced that Charity would be going on her quest. Applause ensued.

“With the quest now official, it is now time for Charity to choose her quest partners,” Chiron announced. “You can choose any two people here tonight, dear.” Charity took a deep breath.

“Um, well…” she started. “I’d like to bring Doren with me, if possible.” A few nods among the campers. Doren clapped her shoulder.

“I’d love to come along, kid,” he said with a smile.

“Now, your second partner,” Chiron urged gently. Charity looked around the assembled campers. She could have chosen anyone. Any of her siblings would have proved an invaluable asset on a quest, probably knowing tons of survival stuff and combat. A camper from the Hephaestus cabin would ensure they’d have their equipment in good condition. Hell, even a child of Hermes would have useful tricks to use. So I wasn’t entirely surprised to see Charity perusing the selection of campers. What I was surprised by was the urgency and nervousness of it. I figured she’d land on someone, especially one of her siblings right away. Then she came across me and our eyes locked.

Now that we were making eye contact I could see the desperation in them. It was palpable. She was scared out of her mind and wasn’t sure who she could bring. Then she took a deep breath and pointed at me.

“Jeremiah.”

Every head in the amphitheatre audibly snapped onto me. I was suddenly the target of everyone’s attention for the first time since I had arrived. I shrank down in my seat. I could feel the combination of awe, shock, ire, and confusion hit me from every angle.

“Well Mister Jeremiah,” Chiron said, “what do you say?”

In retrospect I can tell you my anxiety was shot through the roof when I got put on the spot like that. I almost refused out of sheer social terror. But I looked into Charity’s eyes again and saw how much she needed it, someone she could depend on that wasn’t forced to, out of sibling obligation. A friend. I stood up shakily and said

“I accept.” Charity’s smile made it worth it. A smattering of applause happened in response. Chiron waited until the clapping, what little of it there was, died down before announcing that we’d be seen off the next morning. He dismissed the campers, asking me to stay behind. I walked up to Doren and Charity.

“I’m so sorry I put you on the spot there,” Charity said right as I approached.

“Uh, hey, it’s fine,” I assured her. “I just wasn’t expecting it.”

“A surprise to be sure,” Chiron said, walking up to us. “But not an unwelcome one.” He gave us a reassuring smile. “I just wanted to tell you two to get most of your things packed tonight and tomorrow morning we’ll see you off early.”

“Where are we going exactly?” I asked.

“The Cretan Bull is used to the islands of Crete,” Chiron explained. “So it’s appeared down in the south-east of the country.”

“Ah, that I did figure out,” Doren piped up. “It’s down on the coast of South Carolina.”

“Do you know where?” Charity asked. Doren shrugged.

“The nature spirits here could only tell me so much, I think they were getting irritated,” he said. “Either way the entire coast of South Carolina is an option, but maybe we can narrow it down a bit eh?”

“True,” Chiron said. “However, for now I’d like you all to get some sleep. You’ll leave early tomorrow, around 6 to 7 am.” He bid us farewell and Doren walked us back to our cabins.

“So we just fly down there?” I asked.

“Nah, planes are a bit iffy right now,” Doren said. “Plus the quest is less of a journey if we just fly down, do the quest, and fly back. We gotta uphold some traditions.” We got to the cabin circle and he patted our backs. “Get some sleep, I mean it,” he said. “Won’t do to have our big celebrities too tired tomorrow.” Doren waved as he left. Charity turned to me once he was gone.

“Do you think this is a massive mistake?” she asked.

“I mean it’s simple enough,” I said. “Plus this is a chance for us to put our training to the test for real. No sparring or dummies. So we can see if we’re worthwhile at least.” I think I said the wrong thing because Charity gave me a grimace.

“Maybe,” she said. She started towards her cabin. “Good night, see you tomorrow.”

“Night,” I said, heading into the Hermes cabin. I plopped myself down onto my floor mat and did my best to get some restful sleep.

Of course that never happened.


	11. The Wheels on the Bus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The quest begins and already has a minor hiccup.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter goes to show I have no idea what pacing is and that I need to plan stuff out better. However from here on I'm hoping, fingers crossed, that I can make things a bit more exciting. I think my main issue is in my head I'm looking so far into the future I'm not seeing what's in front of me. Also I swear I'm gonna get these chapters out faster, this time I just had a bout of laziness.

Prospective reader, I can safely say that even to this day waking up early is something I recognize as necessary but never got behind really. It’s like great, I get to start my day a bit early, but I’m also exhausted.

So you can imagine my irritation when I was forced to attend to my obligations.

When Luke woke me up it was still dark outside. In fact several of my cabin mates were still asleep.

“Hey,” I heard him whisper. “It’s time to get up, grab your jacket and some other things.” As much as I wanted to stay in my arm semi-comfortable floor mat, I sat up and rubbed my eyes before doing as he said. I exited the cabin feeling grungy since I hadn’t showered or brushed my hair. Outside the cabin I was greeted by the Stoll brothers of all people.

“Uh…” I said, still asleep.

“Look, we wanted to at least see you off,” Travis said.

“Come back alive man,” Connor added. Travis nodded. In my dozed state I felt really touched. I managed a smile and I grabbed each of their shoulders.

“Thanks guys,” I said. “Deeply. Now go back to sleep, I know you want to.” The brothers each clasped my hand, nodded, and then went back inside. I turned to Luke who smiled at me. “You ever been on a quest?” I asked him. He shook his head.

“Not yet,” he said. “Honestly I’m just content not dealing with monsters right now. I’ve had enough of them.”

“Makes sense,” I said as we started walking up to Half-Blood Hill. I noticed Luke had a backpack on his shoulder. “You going somewhere?” I asked.

“Me? Oh, no, this is for you,” he said. He slung it off his shoulder as he walked and handed it to me. I took it and slung it over my own shoulder. I suddenly got the feeling I was back in Washington, getting ready to get on the school bus for another day of Algebra with Mr. Stephanopoulos. Instead I reached Half-Blood Hill to meet Chiron, Charity, and Doren. Chiron was in his centaur form. He had a spear strapped across his back. Charity and Doren were bundled up in big coats, shivering from the morning cold.

“Ah, Mr. Jeremiah,” Chiron said as we approached. “Good to see you.”

“Sorry I’m late,” I said. “Slow waking up.”

“You’re g-good,” Charity stammered. “Just want to make sure you’re r-ready.”

“I think that’s everyone,” Chiron said. He grabbed the spear off his back. “Before you set off, however, I have this for Jeremiah.” He flipped it in his hand, giving it to me by the end of the shaft. I took it gracefully. It was a standard celestial bronze spear from the weapons warehouse. 

“Thanks,” I said.

“I made a special modification to it,” Chiron said. “Press near the base of the blade.” I did so out of curiosity and suddenly the spear shrunk. Not into a smaller version of itself, it became one of those big black flashlights police used. On the side it read  _ MAG Light _ .

“Nifty,” I said.

“Just press the second button to make it a spear again,” Chiron said. “Should be simple enough. Now, for everyone,” he addressed us. “This quest is a chance for Charity to show herself, so she’s the leader. Is that understood?” Doren and I nodded. “Good. To that end we’ll drive you down to the bus station. From there you’re to take routes down to South Carolina. Once you’re near your target, you should be able to make your way on foot.” Chiron made sure we all were paying attention. “Okay, to that end, I wish you all the best of luck.” We thanked Chiron and just as we were about to step out, Luke stopped me.

“Hey, I just wanted to say it’s been good having you around,” he said. “And I want you to know that I’d also like you to come back safely. Okay?” I nodded and smiled.

“Will do,” I said. With that I walked off with Charity and Doren into a parked and running camp van. The driver was Argus, who I had been informed of previously. Hundred eyed guard, served Hera at some point. Massive surfer dude in terms of looks. He wore a long-sleeved button down and black pants for winter but nothing else. Interesting choice of fashion.

We were on the road pretty quickly, Argus driving carefully due to the ice. Charity Doren and I were jammed in the middle seats together with our bags, watching the light posts pass us by.

“Man this is weird,” Charity commented.

“What? The lights?” I asked. They snickered at me.

“No,” Charity said. “Just the context of the trip. It makes looking at all this a bit weird. Like we’re going on a quest and these people are just… living their lives.” Charity gestured to the cars to our left.

“Yeah, I get you,” I said.

“We are in a whole other world,” Doren said. “I mean heck, I’m a satyr. I imagine most of the drivers here would have heart attacks if they could see me like that.”

“I mean they wouldn’t  _ literally _ do that,” I said.

“You’d be surprised,” he said, “how much radically changing someone’s worldview can shock them.” He looked wistfully at the windshield. “Or sometimes they just go into hard denial and retreat into what they believe or won’t let it go.”

“You okay?” Charity asked. Doren blinked for a second before shaking his head quickly.

“Yeah, I’m fine, just lost in the past,” he said. “Before we get sucked into things that don’t matter, we’re almost at the station.” He smiled at us. “Hope you like standing out in the cold again.”

Argus dropped us off, helping us get out and making sure we were packed and hadn’t forgotten anything. He got back in the van with a thumbs up, driving off and leaving us to wait for a bus with a small crowd. I looked down at my ticket. It said that we’d be leaving for Philadelphia, that would take an hour and a half. From there down to Gainesville, Virginia.

“How come we only have tickets as far as Virginia?” I asked.

“Camp’s only got so much money,” Doren said. “Plus quests need us to rough it a bit, so expect some walking.”

“Man the last thing I need is another cross country trip,” I said.

“Yeah, the last one ended with a hell of a bang,” Charity said. I looked to her. She grinned and said, “It really dogpiled on you at the end.”

“That was terrible,” I said. Charity and Doren laughed. Then I remembered Doren was Charity’s protector. “Wait then what was your trip to camp like?” I asked. Doren turned to Charity, who shrugged and looked away.

“It wasn’t too special,” he said. “Honestly less exciting than yours. But that’s partly due to me screwing up our travel plans a bit.” Doren leaned down to whisper in my ear. “Really it’s up to her when she wants to tell you about it. It’s a bit of a sore spot.” I nodded, my brain going back to my and Charity’s argument that snowy night. I wondered if it had anything to do with that. However before I could think about it more, our bus arrived and we got in. It was standard fair (I think), two rows along the bus, each two seats across. Doren took an empty seat beside a sleeping old man, motioning for me and Charity to take the pair of empty seats just across the aisle. I took the window seat, enjoying the close proximity to her. Once she sat down the bus closed its doors and started moving.

We were driving for a while, slowly navigating roads and merges until it finally got on the highway and started on its main path. Looking out the window I saw grey clouds depositing their most recent delivery of snow. I presumed we wouldn’t be ambushed on the bus so I just kept observing things, albeit not really paying attention. I kept looking at Charity and Doren, watching them. Doren was asleep pretty quickly, joining the old man beside him in a harmony of light snoring. Charity was checking her pack, making sure every minute detail was prepared and still intact.

“What all did you pack?” I asked, trying to look into her bag. Charity closed it and looked at me.

“Are you trying to look at my stuff?” she asked.

“Sorry, force of habit,” I said. “Luke gave me a pack but I never checked inside.” I admitted. “I should do that.”

“That’s a good idea, we’ll need to pool our resources,” Charity said. I pulled up my backpack and opened it. Inside was a couple changes of clothes, my flashlight/spear, what looked like a bedroll on the bottom, and a few plastic bags. I picked out the plastic bags and examined their contents. One contained several gold drachmas, another contained some normal US currency, and another had a few useful items (iodine droplets, bandages, gauze, and a small bottle of hydrogen peroxide).

“Pretty standard, I think,” I said. “I think I saw a TV announcement about these droplets and purifying water.” Charity examined my bag and nodded.

“Yeah, I’ve got a lot of the same,” she said. “How much cash do you have?” I checked.

“About $180.”

“That might work, I have only $80.” Charity bit her thumb in contemplation. “But we gotta budget food and a ride back.”

“Ride back?” I asked.

“Well do you want to walk up the east coast back to camp?” she asked.

“Well when you put it that way, no.” I looked over at Doren. “Maybe ask Doren when he’s up if he has any he can pool.”

“Good idea,” Charity said, nodding her head. I put my pack back under my chair and leaned back in my seat. My eyelids felt really heavy all of a sudden. I let out a yawn. “Tired?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Waking up early was never my strong suit. I’m gonna doze off if that’s alright with you.”

“Yeah, I might do the same,” she said with a yawn. I took that as my chance and I closed my eyes. I let myself sink into the seat a bit, folding my arms so that I could concentrate some of the heat. I didn’t need to let my mind wander onto various shallow topics, I just dozed right away.

Of course I dreamt.

First I was somewhere way back in the past. I was on a raised wooden platform, surrounded by a mob of shouting, angry people. In the middle of the platform was a massive guillotine. I recognized it from various cartoons I’d seen, but this was terrifying. One man was hoisting the rope, pulling the blade up. It was streaked with crimson. Looking down I saw the hole where the head went, blood staining and pooling around a basket full of… heads. I had to look away and not gag. This wasn’t real, at least right now, I had to remind myself. Suddenly the crowd’s shouting intensified. I looked over to the stairs to see a man with white hair and a smug look walk up the stairs. Behind him a woman in a white dress was being led up the steps by a rope leash. The crowd cheered, loud enough I still wasn't able to understand any of it. The smug guy walked up to the front of the platform near me, raising his arms for some calm. He then started speaking in French as the woman was dragged to the guillotine. On the way she accidentally stepped on the executioner’s foot. As the smug guy spoke, things were thrown at the woman. Fruit, rocks, and other stuff I shouldn’t mention. I had no idea who this person was until the guy speaking said the one thing I could understand: Marie Antoinette. I looked at the woman, taking in the scene fully. I remember hearing about the French Revolution and that they executed the royals but this was… different from the textbooks.

I think the thing that stuck with me was the resignation in her eyes. There was no defiance, no fire, no sadness, nothing. Just acceptance of her fate. The guy speaking turned and asked for what I assumed were her final words. She said just a sentence, one I couldn’t understand. I think I heard the word ‘pardon’ but I wasn’t sure. She was made to kneel down. Then, just as quickly as she was there, she wasn’t. I’ll spare you the details but I now know what it looks like when a guillotine is used properly.

I was thankfully dragged away from that gruesome scene to something a lot more… frustrating.

Helena Garron walking along a university campus, bag dangling from her shoulder. She held a book in her arms as she separated from a departing crowd of students. I could see one guy following her, his arms moving as he talked.

“Look I’m just saying, it’d be great to have you there,” the guy said. My mother flipped him off.

“Piss off,” was all she said as she picked up her pace. The guy stopped walking, letting his shoulders drop in resignation. I followed my mother, wanting to ask her so many questions yet unable to. I followed her to a public bench as she sat down, quickly approached by another woman.

“Heey!” she said as she approached my mother. I recognized her as a younger version of the woman she was talking to in the bar.

“Hey Janine,” Helena said. “When are guys gonna stop asking me to parties?”

“No idea,” Janine said, sitting down. “Maybe when they stop thinking you look good?”

“Maybe,” Helena snorted. “They just want another girl to get drunk and-”

“Oh stop it,” Janine interrupted. Then she looked at the book Helena was reading and grabbed it. “A book on mortuary studies and death rituals?” she asked.

“Yes,” Helena said, grabbing it back. “It’s interesting, it’s history.”

“Death?”

“Yeah,” Helena opened the book to a page. “Look here, this is a tower of silence used in Zoroastrianism for excarnation.”

“That’s disgusting,” Janine said. “What’s even the purpose of that?” Helena closed the book.

“Read it and find out,” she said. I wanted to see more, except I woke up. 

I opened my eyes somewhat unwillingly to notice my vision was sideways. Looking down, I saw Charity’s arm. I slowly raised my head and saw that she was also asleep beside me, her head leaned away from me. I must have leaned onto her shoulder at some point. The side of my head felt warm from sleeping on her.

“You’re up,” I heard. I looked over Charity at Doren who was yawning. “I think we’re almost there.” I took that as my cue to shake Charity awake. When I did so, she jerked awake. Her eyes were wide and her breathing shallow.

“You good?” I asked. Charity looked at me, taking it in, and then seemed to calm down.

“Yeah,” she said. “Sorry, not a great dream.” She ran a hand through the right side of her hair. “Let’s just get off at our stop. When is that, anyway?”

“That’s a good question,” Doren said. Just then a guy who must have worked for the bus company stopped by our seats.

“Where are you folks headed to?” he asked. We told him and his face was suddenly sympathetic. “Oh, we already stopped there. In fact that’s where I got on. I just assumed you all were headed elsewhere.” I watched Charity’s face fall. I had no response, I felt her panic. Thankfully, Doren piped up.

“Where’s the next stop?” he asked.

“Oh that’d be Gettysburg,” the attendant said. “We’re not too far off actually, about an hour.”

“Thanks, we’ll just get off there and figure things out for ourselves,” Doren said. The attendant expressed his apologies and we could do nothing but accept them. Once he moved nearer the back of the bus, we focused on Charity who held her head in her hands.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it,” she swore. “Gods damn it, of course I’d screw this up.”

“Well, let’s look at it this way,” Doren said, trying to keep her spirits up. “We get off at Gettysburg and we can make our way from there. It just means more time on foot.”

“Yeah, he’s right,” I said. “I mean if Doren can lead me of all people across the country alive, the three of us should be able to do Pennsylvania to South Carolina easily.” I sat there, watching Charity. She took a deep breath. Then another. And then another. Then she finally looked up at us and said

“All right, we’ll do that.” She had a look of determination on her face. “But first let me think for a while, I want to plan something.” We did so. Doren seemed to return to his nap, albeit a light one. Charity brought out a map of the east coast and started reading it. I retreated back to my seat, thinking about my mother. As much as I tried not to feel it, frustration kept bubbling back up inside me. I wanted to talk to her, to see if she knew who my father was. Maybe I could ask her friend but she seemed to have no idea either. Since my first dream she didn’t even know his name. Helena’s obituary didn’t mention a husband or a boyfriend. Just me. All I had to go on aside from my dreams was just her obituary information, which I left back at camp. Of course I did. Now  _ I _ felt like an idiot. Then I felt like an idiot for thinking that bringing it would do anything. Would I stumble on her friend Janine, assuming she moved over to this corner of the country? No.

I felt my mood souring and I had no outlet for it aside from sinking into my chair and sighing in irritation. Part of my mind directed it at my mother. Did she really write nothing down? Even my father’s name? Even my dreams were vague. They felt like I was catching snippets of a TV show before one of my foster parents shut it off. Each bit felt connected, but it was so minor that I couldn’t form any coherent ideas.

Before I could spiral into a vortex of my own misgivings, I forced my mind to focus on other things. Doren, Charity and I were on a quest together. Despite a minor hiccup, we were still on track relatively speaking. And the quest was easy so we had that going for us.

Just then Charity sat up, shaking my shoulder and then Doren’s.

“Okay, I’ve got a plan,” she said.


End file.
